Due to adverse weather conditions, the launch of Taifa-1, Kenya’s first operational 3U Earth observation satellite, was postponed on Friday, 28 seconds before liftoff.
A Space X Falcon-9 rocket owned by Elon Musk was slated to launch the satellite from the Vandenberg Base in California on April 11.
It was rescheduled once again due to unfavorable weather.
The launch has been postponed till Saturday at 9:44 am.
A group of nine engineers from the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) spent Ksh50 million building the satellite. The team collaborated with Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer Endurosat AD, which provided parts for the satellite.
The satellite is supposed to be sent into space to provide accurate and timely earth observation data to stakeholders in several application areas, such as agriculture and food security.
Additionally, the mission’s objective is to “build Kenya’s technical capacity across the entire value chain of space technology development and applications.”
With dozens of tiny microsatellites and nanosatellites in a sun-synchronous orbit, the Transporter 7 mission is a specialized ride-sharing journey.
Before the launch was aborted, the countdown at the startup level had already been taken over by the Falcon 9 flight computers.
The rocket and cargo, however, were still in good shape.
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