NASA confirms Zimbabwe’s maiden Satellite launch
Brian Rungano Temba
NASA has confirmed that Zimbabwe’s maiden satellite Zimsat-1 is now on the Launchpad and ready to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) for deployment into space.
Zimbabwe’s first satellite will be deployed through the Northrop Grumman (NG-18 Cygnus), which was expected to lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, USA on Sunday November 6, 2022.
The launch which was was postponed due to a fire alarm at the mission operations control centre in Dulles, Virginia is now set for Monday November 7 at 5:27am ET (10:27 UTC), said NASA.
The weather and the rocket were reported to be all okay.
The launch is now set for tomorrow Monday, November 7, 2022 at (12:27PM Zimbabwean time) 5:27a.m. EST.
The lift off will be broadcast on NASA Television and the agency’s website, as well as YouTube, Twitter, and NASA’s App.
According to NASA, tomorrow’s weather is good for a satellite launch with a 75 percent chance.
The historical event for Zimbabwe is thanks to the remarkable relationship between Japan and Zimbabwe. Japan has a program, Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Satellite (BIRDS) Project.
Each year, since 2015 (BIRDS-1), the Japanese have trained scientists from non-space countries. Zimbabwe is on BIRDS-5, with Uganda.
When asked during a press briefing today why NASA is launching satellites for Japan, Uganda and Zimbabwe NASA had this to say,
” The Japanese Space Exploration Agency has a programme called BIRDS, this is the fifth of their missions. The goal of this is to help non Space ferrying nations to get their first step in this space life and use it as a starting point to start yheir climb. So this is a great programme and the students working on these satellites are extremely excited and it’s a great way to get them involved in space life. ”
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