The history of space in Africa is the history of space activity by or sent from Africa.
Africa has had since 1947 launch sites, with the first independent space programs having been set up early into the Space Age, and African countries participating within the United Nations in developing international space law. Since 1999 African countries have sent satellites into orbit (SUNSAT), had one astronaut in orbit (Mark Shuttleworth) and have founded national space agencies, including an all African African Space Agency of the African Union.
Overview The domain of international space politics gained significant traction during the Cold War. This was largely fuelled by the ongoing space race between the US and the USSR. At this time in history, space exploration was an endeavour largely restricted to the global superpowers and seemed out of reach for many smaller, developing, nations to actively participate in. Subsequently, public concerns for the cost of research and development into novel space technologies did not receive sufficient policy and academic attention in Africa. As the Cold War reached its conclusion, political power began to diffuse across the world, and this led to many smaller nation states developing national and regional space capabilities. In the context of Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt and South Africa were the front-runners in terms of investments into space-related research and development.
Over the past few decades, Africa has witnessed a significant increase in investments into space-related R&D, ranging from satellites to ground facilities; including astronomical observatories, ground stations for remote sensing and communications, and rocket launch capabilities. At present, 20 countries across the African continent have established a national space programme, either in the form of a research institution or a national space agency. Many of these nations, including, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Sudan have already launched satellites into orbit, while others like Botswana and Uganda, to name a few, are committed to developing and launching their own satellites within the next few years. Sophisticated telescopes, for astronomical observations, conducted across the electromagnetic spectrum, can be found on all four corners of the African continent. Ground stations for satellite tracking, remote sensing, and more recently, for space weather forecasting, have also been established throughout the region. With regards to launch capabilities, the Luigi Broglio Space Center (LBSC) near Malindi, Kenya and the Denel Overberg Test Range in South Africa are two notable examples of orbital launch facilities located in Africa.
As space programmes are typically a capital and resource intensive endeavour, many of these developing African nations have been criticized by the public for heavily investing into the development of space infrastructure. The most cited argument against investment into space capabilities revolves around the fact that resources should be allocated to higher priority areas, addressing more immediate issues on the ground, like; poverty, inequality, armed conflicts, national security concerns, political instability, and dependence on foreign aid in the region. This argument is countered by the fact that space technology, particularly in the area of Earth Observation and remote sensing, has made a substantial contribution towards the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), highlighted in Agenda 2030.
According to the United Nations: "Utilising space contributes positively to a range of policy areas, including climate and weather monitoring, access to health care and education, water management, efficiency in transportation and agriculture, peacekeeping, security and humanitarian assistance." In Africa, access to satellite imagery data and broadband has revolutionized agriculture, helped mitigate illegal mining, and saved many lives from the impact of natural disasters, like floods and the aftermath of volcanic eruptions. These positive socio-economic impacts resulting from space technologies is the primary catalyst motivating smaller nations to set up their own space programmes. Consequently, through these investments in space infrastructure, Africa countries have made significant strides in research and innovations in the fields of space science and astrophysics, high performance computing, software development, satellite engineering, geodesy, urban planning, and environmental science.
Regional overview of the African space economy Prior to 2010, much of Africa's involvement in the global space sector was mainly in the areas of astronomy, space science, and around assisting foreign space missions with tracking and telemetry, through ground stations with antennas strategically located across the continent. Since then, many African countries have entered the space fora, through the establishment of their respective national space agencies/institutions. Coincidently, the nations with existing space capabilities continued to develop satellite programmes and expand their space budgets. By 2020, South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt and Angola were the top 5 African countries in terms of allocated space budgets, with a combined budget of approximately US$393 million (see Figure 1).
The African upstream/space manufacturing sector Not much investment has been made in the area of launch vehicles and orbital launch facilities due to much of the focus on the continent being on the downstream segment, exploiting space technologies for various applications- particularly for Earth Observation, remote sensing and satellite communications. However, there are existing launch facilities scattered across the continent. The Denel Overberg Test Range, located on the south coast of South Africa and the Luigi Broglio Space Centre (LBSC), owned by the Italian Space Agency and located in Malindi, Kenya are two notable orbital launch facilities on the continent. Furthermore, the 1967 Evian Agreement, allowed Algeria to inherit a French-owned rocket launch facility in Hammaguir. There are growing efforts to develop launch capabilities through rocket and missile programmes throughout the region. However, as of September 2022, all African satellites have been launched from foreign launch pads in countries like Russia, China, Kazakhstan, France and the US to name a few.
The first African owned satellite, NileSat 101, was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) from Kourou, French Guiana on 28 April 1998. The associated Egyptian telecommunications company NileSat then went on to launch NileSat 102, NileSat 103, NileSat 201 and most recently NileSat 301, all of which operate as geosynchronous communications satellites. In terms of the number of satellites launched, South Africa leads the way with a total of 11 as of 2022, closely followed by Egypt (10), Algeria (6), Nigeria (6), Morocco (3) and Ethiopia (2). Tunisia, Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya, Mauritius, Ghana and Angola have also launched at least one satellite into orbit.
In addition to these, there are three multilateral Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) telecommunications satellite projects. Two of which were launched as part of an agreement with the Regional African Satellite Communication Organization (RASCOM)- an organisation that represents the interests of 44 telecommunications operators. The other is the New Dawn satellite, a joint venture between IntelSat and South African investors, which aims to extend Africa's communications infrastructure. Moreover, the African Resource Management Constellation (ARMC) is an intra-Africa collaboration between Kenya, Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa. The project was initiated in 2004 and revived in 2018, with the goal of launching a constellation of four Earth Observation satellites (each country contributing a single satellite) and sharing the data collected from the satellites, to assess and monitor the continent's natural resources.
Although majority of the above-mentioned satellites are owned and operated by African countries, many of the satellites are built through collaborations with foreign entities. Algeria and Nigeria have both collaborated with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in the UK as part of technology transfer agreements (SSTL provided training to Nigerian engineers which they then applied to the development of Nigeriasat-1 and 2). Egypt has also partnered with Russia for the development of EgyptSat-A, which was launched on 21 February 2019, to conduct land observation and disaster monitoring. In Ghana, the All-Nations University Space Systems and Technology Lab (ANU-SSTL) collaborated with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan on the GhanSat-1 Cubesat project, which was launched as the nation's first satellite on 7 July 2017. Rwanda has partnered with the University of Tokyo in Japan in their efforts to build and launch their country's first satellite. The 3U CubeSat named RWASAT-1 was launched on 24 September 2019. In South Africa, Stellenbosch University and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) have active satellite engineering programmes and were responsible for the local production and operation of Sunsat, Sumbandila Satellite, and the ZaCube-1 respectively.
In terms of ground-based observatories, the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory (HMO) was established as a recording station in the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) in 1841. HMO provides important data relating to the geomagnetic field and is used to study the near-earth space environment. South Africa is also home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)- the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. Moreover, South Africa also hosts the Hartebeeshoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRao) and is currently joint host with Australia for the Square Kilometre Array Telescope (SKA), when completed will be the largest radio telescope on Earth, with a collecting area of over a square kilometre (one million square metres). Although the SKA will be located in the Karoo desert of South Africa, the project will also leverage extended facilities across the continent located in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia. The most prominent of these extended facilities is located in Kutunse, Ghana and houses a 32m radio astronomy telescope. Other notable astronomical observatories on the continent include the Entoto Observatory and Research Centre, located on the 3,200-metre summit of Mount Entoto in Ethiopia and the 1.9m optical telescope at the Kottamia observatory, located about 80 km from the centre of Cairo.
Table of African upstream/space manufacturing sector activities
+ The following table provides a summary of the upstream activities in each African country, including ground stations, launch systems and satellites, across the continent. Note that this list may not be exhaustive. Country Designated Space Agency/Institution (year of establishment) Ground Facilities Satellites (year of launch) AlgeriaAgence Spatiale Algérienne- ASAL (2002) Rocket launch site in Hammaguir Sounding rocket launch site in Béchar Satellite ground station in Arzew ALSAT-1 (2002) ALSAT-2A (2010) ALSAT-1B (2016) ALSAT-2B (2016) ALSAT-1N (2016) ALCOMSAT-1 (2017) AngolaGabinete de Gestao do Programa Espacial Nacional - GGPEN (2013) ANGOSAT-1 (2017) ANGOSAT-2 (2022) EgyptEgypt Space Agency- EgSA - (2018) Kottamia observatory- 1.9 meter (m) telescope Nilesat Satellite Operation Centre in Al-Hammam Nilesat Satellite Operation Centre in 6th October City NILESAT 101 (1998) NILESAT 102 (2003) NILESAT 103 (2005) EGYPTSAT-1 (2007) NILESAT-201 (2010) EGYPTSAT-2 (2014) EGYPTSAT A (2019) NARSSCUBE-1 (2019) NARSSCUBE-2 (2019)