African Unification Front
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OVERVIEW OF SPACE SCIENCE IN THE AFRICAN UNION
The African Union has several aeronautical facilities and several space projects, including the National Space Research and Development Agency, that are still uncoordinated. The launching of the AU's NEPAD project may remedy this concern in due course. The largest space programmes have facilities located in the constituent states of Nigeria and South Africa. The Eropean Union and NASA also depend on space facilities in the African Union, including a rocket launching complex run by ARIAN, and communications facilities shared by NASA, and several emergency landing strips.
The African Union space program program is being rebuilt as an environmentally safe way to improve Africa's economy. In 1999 the United States launched a satellite built and designed by engineers at the University of Stellenbosch. Part of the SUNSAT project, that effort could pave the way for a larger network of communications and data-gathering satellites across the African Union. Already African developed satellites such as the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites have been quite successful.
The African Union will be implementing satellite projects to improve domestic communications that will greatly expand broadcasting in remote areas and remote sensing.
The National Space Research and Development Agency, based in Nigeria, will spend $93m in the development of a space programme. Initial funding for the SRDA (NASRDA) is spread over four years, beginning in 2001, after which it is expected to generate its own renenues.
The programme was designed to advance the management through satellite technology, of natural resources and telecommunications in Nigeria, which is the African Union's most populous republic. NASRDA is to have six centres including one handling space transport and propulsion. A space command centre at the Nigerian defence ministry will be created.
Space science is not new in Africa. The most extensive organizing of space sciences in Africa in recent decades was a beneficiary of the efforts of Mobutu Sese Seko, in the Congo, as well as the Republic of Ghana. The European space program relied on the cooperation of African leaders for use of launching, monitoring and telecommunications stations for the rockets.
The NASRDA is interested in applications that will assist Africans in the alleviation of poverty, in food security, the inventorising and sustainable management of Africa's natural resources and improvement in telecommunications. Satellite data are useful for solving these problems.
The space program will also benefit health, basic education, and economic stability. It is appropriate at this stage to have a space program given Africa's need.
The African Union's capacity for space engineering is already exceptional, especially with regard to microstellites. African technology already established the benchmark for highest performance imager in a 64 kg satellite.
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