Africa Aiming for the Stars

The space economy is growing, yet in a context that is still too fragmented. Investments from wealthier countries contribute to its development, without averting predatory exploitation. And the first continental spaceport will be Chinese.

BY EMILIO COZZI

In space, Africa can and in some ways must find its path to the future. Stripping the discussion of all rhetoric, and aware of how forced it is to reduce the identity and strategies of 54 states to a single entity that can represent them all, the reduction in the costs of accessing orbit and components, as well as the processes of digitalization and miniaturization in recent years, are tools to narrow the gap in economic and social development that the planet’s poorest population bears.

For now, it is impossible for African countries to achieve this independently, but the effort is evident, with the emergence of numerous space agencies and investments in the sector on a significant rise. The train to board is still driven by the giants of the industrialized world (the United States, China, Russia, Europe, and Japan), called upon to lead the development of that piece of humanity (over 1.4 billion people) that inhabits the land richest and most exploited precisely for materials indispensable to technological progress (rare earths in particular).

The Takeoff of Africa’s Space Sector

Of the 52 African satellites launched so far, according to the Unoosa registry, only two took flight before the beginning of the Millennium. The first, Egyptian, reached orbit in 1998, followed the next year by the extra-atmospheric debut of South Africa. Today there are fifteen countries in total, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, with satellites in orbit (often purchased on the majority of which were launched in the most recent decade.

The continent boasts 21 space agencies or administrations, half of which were established in 2010 or later.

Data from reports on the continental space economy mirror this surge: in 2023, national investments add up to a total of about half a billion dollars, down from the previous two years. However, according to Space in Africa, projections for the overall space economy, which include private investments and value generation, propel the continent beyond $22 billion by 2026. Still crumbs compared to the global context, but indicative of growing ambition and significance.

Connection and Remote Sensing

Connecting cities and metropolises, but especially the vast spaces from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope, from the Horn to Cape Verde, has been the priority. The first satellites, the Egyptian Nilesat, were used for radio and television broadcasts. In 1992, 45 nations agreed in the Regional African Satellite Communication Organization (RASCOM), which has so far launched two devices (built by Thales Alenia Space). Now, however, there is an explosion of interest and investment, with particular attention from wealthy nations that, by necessity, must teach emerging ones how to walk on their own.

In 2023, South Africa, which is the African state with the second-highest GDP behind Nigeria, launched AgriSAT-1, the world’s first satellite dedicated exclusively to agriculture. Not a trivial choice. Africa’s economy is primarily agricultural and Earth observation from satellites is generating, with geospatial data, great added value in this sector. It is happening in developed countries, where remote monitoring of crops, the state of vegetation, water, and nutrients, allows for precision farming and its associated resource savings and business increase. However, AgriSAT-1 was built by a private company, Dragonfly Aerospace, another significant aspect. The number of space companies and startups, already in the hundreds, is seeing steady growth, especially in Nigeria and South Africa.

Giants and Sprites

According to Space in Africa, 15 African nations have invested a total of $4.71 billion in 58 satellite projects. And there are 105 more expected to be launched by 2026

However, the map is patchy: the economic efforts of individual nations are too different, and the contexts are too diverse to speak of a single “African” space.

This year, Kenya launched its first Earth Observation satellite, Taifa-1, which was carried into orbit by SpaceX. It is a cubesat (tiny), like many other satellites launched by other African countries; Uganda and Zimbabwe’s debut occurred with two microsatellites built with Japan, and launched from the International Space Station in 2022. A testament to a springtime of space endeavors.

Of a completely different scale is Angola’s Angosat-2: two tons in geostationary orbit to bring internet connectivity across the entire continental territory. And a success in partnership with Russia, capable of propelling Luanda forward in the sector.

South Africa, in 2021, has made agreements within the BRICS (with Brazil, Russia, China, and India) for the exchange of satellite observation data. It is among the most advanced countries in its space program, along with Egypt and Nigeria. In November, the Italian Minister for Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, met with the Kenyan Minister of Defence with responsibility for space, Aden Duale, for an industrial and commercial alliance with the country where Italy established its first spaceport in the 1960s.

The (Fragile) Africa Felix

Africa does not own a site from which to launch rockets to bring its assets into orbit. Yet it is crossed by the Equator, a latitude particularly advantageous for extra-atmospheric launches. It is no coincidence that the most used space bases in the United States are in the South (Florida and California) or that Europe exploits the site of Kourou, in French Guiana, a few degrees north of latitude 0. It was not a coincidence even sixty years ago when Italy created the Luigi Broglio Space Center in Kenya, using an offshore platform, San Marco off Malindi, for the launch of its second satellite in 1967. The Italian base saw a total of nine rockets take off from ’67 to 1988.

Now Africa is ready to have its first space base. It was announced in February 2023 and will be built within five years in Djibouti. This is foreseen by the memorandum signed at the beginning of the year by the local government and Hong Kong Aerospace Technology Group, a Chinese company specializing in satellite production and tracking activities, willing to invest more than a billion dollars for the base and several related infrastructures. The non-binding memorandum implies the concession of an area of ten square kilometers for at least 35 years and the construction of seven launch ramps and three for testing in the region of Obock, in the Horn of Africa. The international commercial spaceport is expected to inaugurate as early as 2027, in a strategic location, near the Strait of Hormuz. Equally significant is that the financing comes from China, which has been extending its influence and geopolitical interests across the African continent for years.

Thus divided, Africa risks remaining the object of predatory attention, also because the relationships it weaves are more often bilateral agreements made by individual countries, where poverty and political corruption reflect each other.

Very promising, Africa risks remaining fragile.