Zimbabwe will in February 2022 launch its first satellite to space, if the words of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Publicity, Nick Mangwana’s words are to be believed.
According to Mangwana 3 Zimbabwean engineers have been in Japan for over 2 years working at the Japanese Space Agency and the president ED Mnangagwa has promised to give all the required support to make this a success.
The perm sec unprovoked tweeted that the first satellite will be called ZIMSAT-1, and it is currently being manufactured by Zimbabwean engineers and it is currently at an advanced stage.
This undertaking is being carried out by Zimbabwe’s equivalent of NASA called Zimbabwe National Geospacial Space Agency (ZINGSA)
Flight readiness and review is scheduled to be done in December 2021, with the final launch expected for February 2022 in Japan.
https://twitter.com/nickmangwana/status/1437385190159093760?s=20
If the nations manages to launch it join a very short list of African countires that have a number of satellites already in orbit, Egypt leads the way with nine launched satellites, followed by South Africa with eight, Algeria with seven, Nigeria with six, and Morocco with three
At his stage we are not aware of the purpose of the satellite, hopefully it is not for spying purposes.
