By Winnie Kamau
Nairobi, Kenya: Kenya’s first operational 3U observational satellite, Taifa-1, was on Saturday finally launched into space after three unsuccessful attempts due to unfavorable weather.
The launch took place at the United States Vandenberg Base in California, aboard a Falcon9 rocket owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
Taifa-1 successfully launched and deployed in orbit.@spaceX#Taifa– 1 pic.twitter.com/3TshImG9AR
— Kenya Space Agency (@SpaceAgencyKE) April 15, 2023
While speaking on the importance of the project to Africa Space News, the Acting Director of the Kenya Space Agency, Brigadier Hillary Kipkosgey, reiterated that “The mission plays a pivotal role in putting Kenya on the global map because of its contributions to the growth of satellite development, data analysis and processing and development of applications in Africa. Moreover, space is the next frontier in many ways, and we are happy to be part of this progress. It is a moment of pride.”
He said the insights gathered from the analysis of the data will provide useful information to policy and decision-makers in diverse fields who seek to address the challenges Kenya is facing. Some of those challenges are food insecurity and dwindling agricultural production, caused by climate change effects such as prolonged drought.
“The 16m resolution panchromatic and 32m resolution multispectral imageries will be useful for decision support in environmental monitoring, climate change monitoring and mitigation, food security through crop condition monitoring and crop yield estimation, disaster management, and natural resources management, among others,” Brigadier Kipkosgey said.
The Nation-1, or Taifa-1 in Swahili, aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be used for data mapping over a number of years, with the information used for agricultural and environmental monitoring. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Nyawade is in charge of Engineering Operations and Space Exploration at the Kenya Space Agency.
He told BBC Newsday about the ambitious plans Kenya has for its space programme. “We are looking at a lifetime of five years for the satellite. We are confident the instruments will perform as designed. This is the first of many.” He said this was the first satellite, but that the country plans to launch many others with the hope of increasing the “resolution of the images sent back.”
These are excerpts from the podcast interview with BBC Newsday with Lt. Col. Nyawade explaining the impact of the Taifa1 satellite in the country.
“For this particular satellite, the first objective is to develop our capability in terms of space systems engineering and operations. The second objective is to provide data, multispectral data for applications in agriculture environmental monitoring, and natural resource mapping this is actually in line with our mandate as Kenya Space Agency to promote and coordinate space activities in the country and also to support other government entities in delivering services to the people so in agriculture we are mainly looking at monitoring crop condition over seasonal changes because we are able to acquire the imagery as the satellite continues its operations” he explained.
Why not mount a camera on the car what is unique about the satellite Lt. Col. Nyawade was asked in the interview and these were his observations “In this particular case we have a multi-spectrum camera that is able to acquire imagery in different spectral bands of the electromagnetic spectrum so this enables one to characterize the subject that is benign observed in this case if its vegetation we are able to see the condition in terms of moisture and in terms of health in terms of nutrients that will then inform the decisions that you will take to correct any unfavorable conditions,” said Lt. Col. Nyawade.
The collaborative project saw Kenyan engineers from Kenya Space Agency and the SayariLabs construct and designed the satellite while Bulgarian firm EnduroSat aided in the testing and manufacturing of the parts. at a cost of 500,000 USD.
