Rwanda

SGAC Rwanda

Welcome to the SGAC Rwanda page.

 

Rwanda, like other developing countries, recently approved the establishment of the Rwanda Space Agency (RSA) as the country seeks to enhance and monitor service delivery in specific sectors using skills in the multi-billion dollar industry.

RSA was established to develop Rwanda’s space sector towards socio-economic development. For RSA to achieve this mission, there was a need to first understand the needs of stakeholders in terms of space-related services.

Recently, Rwanda’s ambition to launch two satellite constellations in the next three years has further highlighted the country’s plan to become a hub for the African space industry. RSA announced the development in October 2021, citing that it filed a request to acquire two satellite constellations from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The two fleets of craft totals 327,320 satellites. 

The launch of Rwasat-1 to space was a big milestone in Rwanda’s space journey. It was an opportunity for Rwandan engineers to participate in the mission design, assembly and integration of the satellite. Rwasat-1 a CubeSat (3U) launched to the ISS on 20 November 2019. The program was conducted in partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to help the country develop its space engineering capabilities. The cubesat has onboard two cameras for agriculture monitoring and a receiver for ground based sensors and has been developed at the University of Tokyo with 15 Rwandan engineers.

The second Rwandan satellite called Icyerekezo was launched among the OneWeb constellation(high throughput Ku-band up to 8 gigabits per second) on 27.02.2019 on board the Soyuz-ST-B Fregat-M. Its objective is to provide high-speed for Internet access in a remote area.

 

 

Follow the Rwanda Space Agency on Twitter @SpaceRwanda