KAMPALA— Uganda has its first satellite surveillance system after the successful launch of Pearl Africa Sat-1 from the NASA station in the United States, the local news agency Mazima reported on Tuesday.

The report confirmed that the cube-shaped object, built by Ugandan engineers with the help of the Kyushu Japan Institute of Technology in 2020, was launched on Monday from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) station in Wallops Island, Virginia.

The satellite launch had been postponed three times in September and October due to bad weather conditions, and until the last minute some technical glitches were worked out to achieve liftoff.

Bony Omara, one of the Ugandan engineers involved in this project, commented that it took 18 months to develop Pearl Africa Sat-1 with the deadline in 2022, and it will have the mission of collecting information on soil fertility and digitizing land titles.

He explained that it will take up to 15 hours to reach the international space station where it will be deployed after three weeks of observing its operational conditions and positioning it correctly.

With a lifespan of four to five years, the satellite will remain in orbit for its operations and is directly connected to its ground station, to where it will send images through wireless transmission similar to cell phone connectivity, he added.

According to Uganda’s Ministry of Science and Technology, Pearl Africa Sat-1 is designed to provide research and observation data that will offer solutions in weather forecasting, land, water bodies, mineral mapping and agriculture monitoring.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK