Due to severe weather conditions, Space X satellite has cancelled the launch of Kenya’s first earth observation satellite.
Only 29 seconds before it was set to launch into space from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California, the Falcon 9 rocket was stopped by the launch director.
On Saturday, a second attempt will be made.
Due to bad weather, the launch has now been delayed twice this week.
51 other satellites and orbital vehicles are slated to be delivered on the Transporter 7 mission, including Kenya’s Taifa-1 satellite.
It will be used to collect information for monitoring the environment, land use, and agriculture.
The satellite would be the 50th one that African countries have launched. 14 nations on the continent have so far launched satellites into orbit, with many of them choosing private corporations like SpaceX to conduct their launches.
History of The Satellite
The satellite was transported to the International Space Station on April 2, 2018, by a SpaceX CRS-14 that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration helped launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.
On May 11, 2018, it was released from the space station’s Kib module and placed into orbit. The students of Sapienza University of Rome successfully retrieved their signal from the ground station in Rome. After GhanaSat-1 and Nigeria EduSat-1, which both entered operation in 2017, it was the third launch for an African nation. Two other nanosatellites, Ubakusat and Proyecto Iraz, were carried by the Falcon-9 rocket to the International Space Station in addition to 1KUNS-PF. Norishige Kanai, a Japanese astronaut, launched all three satellites into orbit from the International Space Station.
A 1-unit cubesat was called the 1KUNS-PF. It was an experimental cubesat, and its major goal was to raise locals’ knowledge of the advantages of space use. The cubesat was equipped with camera payloads that were used to map the areas around its orbit in Kenya and other East African nations.
The UN space use mitigation procedures were followed during the cubesat’s operations, which were planned to last a year. June 2020 saw the deorbit of 1KUNS-PF.