David Baratoux, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD); Aziz Diaby Kassamba, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'Ivoire; Marc Harris Yao Fortune, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'Ivoire; Marie Korsaga, Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo, and Pancrace Aka, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'Ivoire
Côte d’Ivoire’s nanosatellite is the first step towards applications that monitor environmental harm and illegal activities and assist in planning for development.
Free space optical communication will allow the same connectivity in space we already have on Earth. And this will provide benefits across a number of sectors.
How do you train space engineers? You enable college students to build mini satellites, called CubeSats, launch them into space and help them collect the data.
When Vanguard 1 – the “grapefruit satellite” – was launched in 1958, its only companions were Explorer 1 and Sputnik 2. Soon it may have thousands of descendants swarming around it.
As technology advances, tiny satellites no bigger than a loaf of bread have advanced from just proving they work to being big contributors in answering science questions.
Just about anyone can get a tiny, cheap satellite into orbit these days. As we consider how to deploy them responsibly, inspiration comes from an amateur community of enthusiasts.
Earlier this year, the Russian Federal Space Agency received a hand-luggage-sized delivery from the UK. It came with a request to launch the contents aboard a rocket, along with the Russian three-tonne…