Namibia one step closer to space

NAMIBIA recently gave one small step closer to space with the graduation of 11 Namibians in space science and technology qualifications.

Through a cooperation agreement between the Namibian government and its Chinese counterpart, five of the students obtained master’s degrees in space science while the rest received certificates.Alfred Ilukena, the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Education, says: ‘As a whole, Africa is very poorly represented in the area of space science and technology and its applications. Most African countries lack the human, technical and financial resources to utilise existing space-based infrastructure for even the most basic applications in meteorology, communications and natural resource management.’Therefore, Ilukena says, ‘there is a need to promote and coordinate cross-cutting multidisciplinary research and applications in space science and technology to address the development needs on the African continent’.According to the PS, ‘there are enormous benefits’, including enhancing and/ or dealing with communication and broadcasting, the predication, warning and mitigation of damage from floods and other natural hazards and distance education and e-learning’.The training was the result of a cooperation agreement signed between Namibia and China in 2000 to set up a tracking, telemetry and command station in Namibia. The centre, situated outside Swakopmund, was established to set up to manage and control the re-entry or landing procedure of China’s manned spacecraft.Following the students’ training, they will be employed at the station outside Swakopmund, Ilukena says.