Ethiopia's first-ever satellite, known as ETRSS-1, is launched on a Long
March-4B carrier rocket at Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north
China's Shanxi Province on December 20, 2019. PHOTO | ZHENG TAOTAO |
XINHUA
Ethiopia launched its first satellite into space on Friday, as
more sub-Saharan African nations strive to develop space programs to
advance their development goals and encourage scientific innovation.
Before
dawn on Friday, senior officials and citizens gathered at the Entoto
Observatory and Research Centre just north of the capital Addis Ababa to
watch a live broadcast of the satellite’s launch from a space station
in China.
“This will be a foundation for our historic
journey to prosperity,” deputy prime minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a
speech at the launch event broadcast on state television.
The
satellite was designed by Chinese and Ethiopian engineers and the
Chinese government paid about $6 million of the more than $7 million
manufacturing costs, Solomon Belay, director general of the Ethiopian
Space Science and Technology Institute, told Reuters.
“Space
is food, space is job creation, a tool for technology...sovereignty, to
reduce poverty, everything for Ethiopian to achieve universal and
sustainable development,” he said.
The satellite will be used for weather forecast and crop monitoring, officials said.
The African Union adopted a policy on African space development
in 2017 and declared that space science and technology could advance
economic progress and natural resource management on the continent.
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