The delayed lift-off of the Cygnus spacecraft is finally a go. The flight which was delayed due to a fire alarm at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, US Spaceport had on board Zimbabwe’s first satellite.

The actual deployment of ZimStat-1 into space is scheduled two or three weeks after launch. This comes as a small step to significant potential in agricultural development. This development follows President E.D Mnangagwa’s establishment of the Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency in 2018 to enhance agricultural exploration, wildlife conservation, disease surveillance, and infrastructure mapping.

Zimbabwe shares this milestone with Uganda, which has also launched its first satellite in a joint project with Japan (The Joint Global Multi-National Birds Project). The project involves a constellation of two 1U CubeSats and one 2UCubeStat. The mission is to perform multispectral observations of the Earth and demonstrate a high-energy electronic measuring instrument that can be mounted in CubeSat size. Once launched, Zimbabwe hopes to deploy geospatial technology to manage its boundaries, calculate full mineral quantities and help telecommunications companies improve services.

Moreover, the project will help address the space needs of participating nations by availing access to statistical data that can be useful in improving the livelihoods of their citizenry. Satellite images will be available on a free app (BIRDS-NEST) which can be downloaded onto smartphones.

The technology used for observations is a commercial off-the-shelf camera. The satellites are equipped with a four-band multispectral optical imager, with spectral bands ranging from 550 nm to 790 nm. Satellites within the project house a store-and-forward payload used to gather data from ground sensors for weather and disaster monitoring, among other remote sensing applications.

The United Nations has stated that this project will provide great leverage to developing nations for further satellite development. The project is therefore a foundation for meaningful and effective capacity building