Africa is blasting its way into the space race

IN THE HOURSNASASUNSATNASA after Hurricane Katrina slammed into America in 2005, destroying large parts of New Orleans, the people co-ordinating the disaster response urgently needed satellite pictures to show them what they were facing. The first images to come in were not from the constellations launched by or the space agencies of other rich countries. They were beamed to Earth by a small Nigerian spacecraft that had been launched from Russia just two years earlier.The small cube—Nigeria’s first satellite and only the second launched by a sub-Saharan African country—did not just watch a storm, it provoked one, too. British politicians and a taxpayers’ pressure group called for a halt in development aid, saying Nigeria did not need help if it could afford a space programme. Still, the sums being spent on space by African countries back then were tiny. South Africa’s , the region’s first satellite, was built by students at Stellenbosch University and hitched a free ride on a rocket. Nigeria’s spacecraft cost just $13m.