Falling cost of space flight makes room for African companies

Space-based products and services could play a “critical role” in meeting Africa’s sustainable development goals, UK think tank Chatham House wrote. Satellites enable global communications and monitor natural resources and climate cycles — crucial information for a continent particularly vulnerable to climate change, an expert told the BBC. Some experts have criticized such ambitions as distractions from meeting more basic needs, like access to clean water. “We are not in space to explore the cosmos… we are in space to improve our daily lives,” an African Space Council representative countered. Developing space programs — and building the infrastructure and skilled workforce to manage them — have the potential to “rapidly change the fate of [Africa’s] citizens,” Chatham House noted.

Both the US and China have heavily invested in African space technology. China sees its expertise in space exploration as an “incentive for African states to form closer ties with Beijing,” according to a report by the US Institute of Peace. To that end, China has helped to launch satellites from several African countries, including Ethiopia and Egypt. The US, meanwhile, has focused on space as a means to advance Africa toward its development goals — and counter China: US National Reconnaissance Office and NASA officials have expressed increasing concern over China’s growing influence in space exploration, with NASA’s chief warning of a new Cold War-like “space race” between Washington and Beijing.