Africa: Djibouti joins the circle of nations with their own satellites in space

Several African countries have launched their first satellite into space. The last country to do so was Kenya in April 2023 with its Taifa-1 satellite. Djibouti has just announced the launch of its first satellite, Djibouti 1A.

The construction of this satellite was made possible by close collaboration with the University space center of Montpellier.

This internationally renowned institution trained the Djiboutian engineers who developed and tested the nanosatellite.

With this achievement, Djibouti joins the closed circle of African nations with their own satellites in space. Côte d’Ivoire is also preparing to launch its first nanosatellite, Yam-Sat CI 01.

The same goes for Senegal with GAINDESAT. Djibouti does not have immense natural resources, so it is banking on areas such as technology to kick-start its development.

With the Djibouti 1A satellite, the country will be able to collect ultra-precise climate data. The satellite was launched on Saturday 11 November from the Vandenberg space base in California, USA.

A second satellite, Djibouti 1B, is currently being built for launch in 2024. To empower its launch processes, the East African country has signed an agreement worth around a billion dollars with China for the construction of a local satellite and rocket launch port.

Moussine A.