China successfully launched its first ever extraterrestrial landing craft into orbit en route for the moon last week. The Chang’e-3 lunar probe, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch.
You may be thinking that over here in Africa little is being done in the field of space exploration. However the continent has been making progress and a number of countries have developed their own space programs.
During the 1960s before USA and Russia had gone into space, one man in Zambia was preparing to launch a team of Afronauts-African astronauts into orbit.
We cannot talk about Space Exploration in Africa without mentioning South Africa. SANSA or South African National Space Agency is the country’s space program.
South Africa’s latest success was the launch of their first nano satellite, better known as the CubeSat. On the day of the launch, the event was trending on twitter.
https://twitter.com/TrendsSthAfrica/status/403458666612789248
Safe journey #zacube1 (ThsepoSAT) we look forward to hearing from you soon!
— SANSA (@SANSA7) November 21, 2013
It was devised by university students
SA’s first nano-satellite devised by @CPUT students will be able to monitor space ‘weather’ http://t.co/tWjPDTZaNb
— Business Day (@BDliveSA) November 15, 2013
Ethiopia also joined the fray of African space exploration with the launch of its space observatory which is the largest in East Africa this year. The team now plan to send its first satellite to space in 3 years.
