Africa

The government of São Tomé and Príncipe signed an agreement with India to create a space centre on the island that is situated off of Africa's Equatorial West coast at a ceremony held on 8 September 2018 during a visit to New Delhi by the São Tomé and Príncipe Minister for Foreign Affairs, according to a report in Africanews.space.

The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) has selected Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a subsidiary of Maxar Technologies, to provide satellite surveillance data from RADARSAT-2 for maritime domain awareness.

UAE’s Yahsat, through its subsidiary YahClick, will partner with Comsys and Teledata to provide reliable satellite broadband in Ghana, where connectivity is regularly disrupted and can cost the national economy U.S.$6.3 million a day in lost business.

The Nigerian Army is creating a Cyber Warfare Command comprised of 150 personnel drawn from across the service in order to combat rising cyber insecurity from terrorists, criminal organisations, and other threats.

Moroccan media is reporting that the North African country's second high-resolution Earth observation satellite, the Mohammed VI-B, is due to be launched on an Arianespace launch vehicle from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana in November 2018 on either the Vega or Soyuz ST-A Fregat-M satellite launch vehicles.

Avanti Communications Group, a UK-based satellite operator, that provides Ka-band satellite communications services across the Europe, the Middle East and Africa, announced the official launch of its South Africa-based operations as of 29 August 2018.

SpaceWatch.Global last spoke to Gernot Groemer, Founder and Administrative Director of the Austrian Space Forum last year when we covered the Forum’s work and activities on the Mars Analogue missions.

The UK space sector is on the cusp of entering a new and golden age. As a country, the UK already has a thriving space sector with leading companies that have pioneered the small satellite industry, for example.

UK-based Effective Space is set to launch its first Space Drone spacecraft in 2020 which will introduce life extension services to satellite operators. The company has received very encouraging feedback on its plans and other potential lines of business such as accommodating new constellations in LEO.

The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) is teaming up with leading U.S. commercial satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe to launch the South Africa Earth Observation Challenge that will seek innovative satellite applications idas from South African startups.