By Ahmed Matovu
KAMPALA: Uganda’s first satelline has today gone into space.
This is after America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the postponement of the activity from yesterday to today Monday, November 7.
According to NASA, the launch which was supposed to take place yesterday was rescheduled to today due to a fire alarm that occurred at the mission operations control center in Dulles, Virginia.
According to the minister for Science, Technology, and Innovation Dr. Monica Musenero the satellite will help to provide research and observation data in six primary areas including weather forecast; land, water, mineral mapping; agriculture monitoring; infrastructure planning; border security, and disaster prevention among others.
The satellite was developed by Ugandan engineers who include; Edgar Mujuni, Bonny Omara, and Derrick Tebusweke.
The Ugandan engineers were enrolled at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech), in Japan where they underwent training in space technology following a collaborative agreement with the Ugandan government in 2019.
Uganda is among several African, Asian, and South American countries benefiting from the Birds Satellite project initiated in 2015 by the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch since I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch!