Africa is blasting its way into the space race
IN THE HOURS after Hurricane Katrina slammed into America in 2005, destroying large parts of New Orleans, the people co-ordinating the disaster response urgently needed satellite pictures to show them what they were facing. The first images to come in were not from the constellations launched by NASA or the space agencies of other rich countries. They were beamed to Earth by a small Nigerian spacecraft that had been launched from Russia just two years earlier.
The small cube—Nigeria’s first satellite and only the second launched by a sub-Saharan African country—did not just watch a storm, it provoked one, too. British politicians and a taxpayers’ pressure group called for a halt in development aid, saying Nigeria did not need help if it could afford a space programme. Still, the sums being spent on space by African countries back then were tiny. South Africa’s SUNSAT, the region’s first satellite, was built by students at Stellenbosch University and hitched a free ride on a NASA rocket. Nigeria’s spacecraft cost just $13m.
In the past few years, however, the continent has dashed into space. The most recent orbital enthusiast is Mauritius, which put up a satellite on June 3rd. At least 20 African countries now have space programmes. These include heavyweights such as Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria, as well as smaller...