Kenya is set to join a group of elite countries that own monitoring space centers when her equivalent of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is set up.
The space center is projected to cost the East African Country in the tune of KSH 10billion and to comprise of a constellation of earth observation satellites.
Kenya is in its final stages of setting up a space center an equivalent of NASA to join the elite countries with space observation centers. The project is projected to cost KSH10 billion complete with an assemblage of earth observation satellites, launching and tracking station and satellite communication Earth Stations.
Upon completion the center is expected to boost country’s security, provide avid solutions to agriculture, education and the medical sectors through the information it will remit.
The Kenyan Office of the Deputy President and Ministry of Defence will be spearheading the project that will end the 3 decade wait for a Kenyan space center turning the country from a space technology user to a contributor to the technology development.
According to the policy order, “Kenya’s strategic outer space includes the geographic location along the equator and bordering the Indian Ocean to its East that facilitates ease of landing of space crafts, tracking of space crafts in space, and ease of access to equatorial orbits, and in particular the geostationary orbit”.
The project is expected to create a lot of jobs seeing as the country has made beforehand preparations by introducing space-related courses in university to avoid the human resource capital importation.
Some of the key areas that will benefit from the project include the monitoring of the 1 million acre Galana irrigation Scheme; improve security by monitoring the borders and cattle rustlers’ movements, tele-education of people in remote areas as well as tele-medicine doctors’ forums.