The new age of the revitalized Space Race has finally reached Africa. With a little help from SpaceX, Ghana has launched their first satellite. The small cubesat, GhanaSat1, was built by a team of engineers at All Nations University and was launched by SpaceX to the International Space Station (ISS) back in June. From there, the satellite was put into orbit in July and has recently become operational.
“This particular satellite has two missions,” project manager Richard Damoah told TechCrunch. “It has cameras on board for detailed monitoring of the coastlines of Ghana. Then there’s an educational piece―we want to use it to integrate satellite technology into high school curriculum."
Another great example of International Cooperation today on @Space_Station --launched 5 micro-satellites from 5 countries off the JAXA arm! pic.twitter.com/w0pcvPJ64y
— Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) July 7, 2017
This achievement is proof of the democratizing power of private enterprise like SpaceX. Being part of these launches opens countries with limited means up to entire new worlds of science. According to Elsie Kanza, Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum, “Several nations, such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia have space agencies. Angola announced its intention to launch a satellite over the coming year.”
As humanity saw from the first Space Race, competition fuels better science. With more nations joining the fold of space exploration, the field widens to new, untold possibility.
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