This document discusses how nanosatellites could provide opportunities for Africa by addressing challenges in education, urban planning, and agriculture. Nanosatellites offer a low-cost solution for acquiring satellite data and training experts locally. They could help improve education access and quality through centralized learning. Urban planning would benefit from timely satellite data on population growth and infrastructure needs. Agriculture and food security could be enhanced by monitoring crops, land, and water resources to optimize production. However, many African countries currently lack the expertise, infrastructure, education, and resources for conventional satellites. Nanosatellites present a good starting point by training local experts and preparing countries for larger space projects in the future.

1. NANOSATELLITE: Opportunity for
Africa
iaerotech.com
Issouf OUATTARA
Junior Aerospace Engineer

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Contexts
• Barriers/limitations
• Solution

3. Why should we invest in space technology
when there are starving people all over
the world who could use that money?
Introduction

4. Introduction
Three Challenging areas in Africa where Space Technology can have
important impacts:
• Education
• Urban Planning
• Agriculture/ food security

5. Context (1): Education
Case of Higher Education
• Low professor to student ratio
• Not enough teaching infrastructure
• Few public universities with poor distribution over the country
• Poor access to resources (Books, journal papers, educational video
content)
• Lack of experimental resources (laboratory resources)

6. Context (1): Education
Satellite based education
• Centralized based education
• Same quality of education for all
• Same quality of content for all
• Availability of resources
• Students can follow courses from famous universities

7. Context (2): Urban planning
Planners need accurate and timely information to:
• Estimate Population Distribution and Growth
• Determine the need in infrastructure facilities
water or sewage systems
Hospital…
• Evaluate Environmental Problems
• Design alternative housing to replace informal settlements
• Plan land distribution for agriculture

8. Context (2): Urban planning
Exemple of the NUSP programme south Africa (use SPOT 5 sat data)(find
more data

9. Context (2): Urban planning
Example of the NUSP program south Africa (use SPOT 5 sat data)(find more
data Increased need of
• Water resources
• Sanitation infrastructure
• Education infrastructure
• Other Services

10. Context (2): Agriculture/Food Security
Some objectives of agricultural sector:
• Mechanization and modernization
• Diversification of Production
• Improve food security
• Improve natural resources management (water, and soil)

11. Context (2): Agriculture/Food Security
Improve natural resources management & Food Security
by:
• Locating and monitoring fertile land
• Locating and monitoring water resources
• Evaluating and understanding crops health
• Detecting the risk or presence of pests and diseases
• Optimizing production

12. Context (2): Agriculture/Food Security
• Increase in the size of the city
to the northeast, south, and
southeast of the lake.
• Deforestation around the lake
=> flooding
• Poor farming methods
• Depth of lake is reducing
Lake Naivasha (3400 𝑘𝑚2), Kenya
January 28, 1986 January 27, 2000
Source image: NASA

13. Context (2): Agriculture/Food Security
• One of the largest lake in
Africa
• Deforestation around the lake
• Deforestation around the river
feeding the lake

14. Context (2): Agriculture/Food Security
• Acquire data about the crop field: measure
• Data processing: get useful information
• Information analysis for decision making
• Implementation: the right dosage of agricultural
inputs, at the right time, and the right place.
Optimizing production by responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops

15. Why African countries are not taking advantage
of Space Technology?

16. Barriers
Why African’s Countries do not have their own satellites ?
Expensive
To develop
To launch
To Operate
To Buy
Big
Satellite

17. Barriers
Why African’s Countries do not have their own satellites ?
Space Technology
needs
Expertise
Infrastructure/equipment
Education
Adequate financial resources
Space
science/tech
is hard

18. How can we make it ?

19. Nanosatellite is a good starting point

20. Nanosatellite
Reducing Size while improving performance

21. Nanosatellite
Satellite Class Mass Range
Small Satellite 100 − 500 𝑘𝑔
Microsatellite 10 − 100 𝑘𝑔
Nanosatellite 𝟏 − 𝟏𝟎 𝐤𝐠
Picosatellite < 1 𝑘𝑔
Femtosatellite 10 − 100 𝑔
 Cubesat is the most used standard
of Nanosat
10 cm
 The market of nanosatellite is increasing
 More applications are being developed

22. Motivation: Low Cost
5,240,000– 7,570,000 $ (2009) 52,000 $ (2009)
100 to 140 CubeSat
Development + Launch
Airplane used by "Institut Géographique du Burkina (IGB)”
For aerial photography and mapping

23. Motivation: Design Aspects
• Need relatively Small Design Team
• Short Development Time
• Modular Systems
• Standard Components (avionics and interfaces)
• Small development environment/facilities
University of Khartoum cubesat
design team
Source: Facebook page: KN-Sat1
Source image: http://www.clyde-space.com

24. Motivation: advantages
Nanosatellites can be used to:
• Train expert locally and gain national expertise (Begin as a university research
program and upgrade little by little to a National Space program)
• Prepare big projects in the future.
• Reduce brain drain (human capital flight)
• Create Jobs
• Provide our countries with all the advantages of Space Technology
 in agriculture
 in Urban Planning
 Telecommunication (education, health care,…)

25. We don’t go to space because it is easy or
funny. We go to space because it matters.