Egyptian Space and Satellite Plans Move Ahead

With a long-awaited law finally being approved by the State Council after passing through parliament, Egypt’s Space Agency is now being formed.

Egypt has been developing a new space centre with some 100 acres set aside for work on the Misr Sat 2 satellite project and another 23 acres planned for other projects. Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, showed MPs a model satellite and said its components will be built by Egyptians at the new space centre, just east of Cairo.

One of the other space-focused projects includes plans to launch a satellite with China in 2019. This technological collaboration with China follows on from a memorandum of understanding which was recently signed between the two countries. China’s US$45 million commitment to building the satellite follows a US$23 million contribution towards Egypt’s space program.

An added benefit of the space agency will be keeping Egyptian scientists in the country. In recent years, over 100 scientists have left the country to pursue opportunities in their field elsewhere. This includes Akram Amin Abdellatif, an aerospace design doctoral student studying in Germany who is the first Egyptian astronaut to be accepted into a NASA training program in the U.S.

Egypt’s space program also has other research partnerships with the Canadian Space Agency, Japan, the European Space Agency, the European Union and the United States.