Africa

As 2019 comes to an end in a few hours, here is the list what you - our readers - liked most in the last year.

These personal reviews are being published during the holiday season.. This is Laurie Scott of neuco.

As this exciting year comes to an end, we would like to thank you, our Readers, for all your interest, feedback and the trust you have placed in us.

Ethiopia’s first Earth observation satellite, the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite (ETRSS-1), was successfully launched on board a Chinese Long March 4B satellite launched vehicle from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre on 20 December 2019.

The 8th African Leadership Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development was hosted at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, in Ethiopia from the 2nd to the 4th December 2019. Over 200 participants joined the conference from 31 countries, 21 of which were African countries.

The member states of the BRICS economic bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – are in the midst of negotiating a mutually beneficial framework that will allow each country to access certain Earth observation satellites from each other, according to various press reports.

The President of the French national space agency, the Centre national d'études spatiales   (CNES), Jean-Yves Le Gall, visited Dakar, Senegal, on 12 December 2019 to take part in the commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA).

Following nearly two years of collaboration on terrestrial surveillance between the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) and Aireon, the two organizations have concluded the use of space-based ADS-B for surveillance services beginning 1 January 2020 within the six flight information regions (FIRs) of ASECNA: Antananarivo, Brazzaville, Dakar Terrestrial, Dakar Oceanic, N'djamena and Niamey.

Panasonic Avionics Corporation, a market leader in in-flight entertainment and connectivity, has signed a multi-year agreement for Ku-band capacity on two multi-beam payloads on the EUTELSAT-10B satellite, due to be launched in 2022.

When we think of space, we generally think of SciFi shows such as Star Trek, or humanity’s current plans to send manned missions to Mars. Most people don’t think about space as a business enabler, and yet that is exactly what it has become over the years.