<p>Kenya's first operational satellite was launched into orbit on Saturday by a SpaceX rocket that took off from California, USA, according to images from the US space company.</p>.<p>The launch, originally scheduled for Monday night in the United States, was postponed several times this week due to bad weather.</p>.<p>On Saturday, a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket took off at 0648 GMT from the base at Vandenberg, California, before deploying several dozen satellites an hour later, including the Kenyan Taifa-1 ("Nation-1", in the Swahili language).</p>.<p>Designed and developed by a team of Kenyan researchers, the satellite is intended to provide data for agriculture and environmental monitoring in Kenya, much needed in the East African country which is currently experiencing a historic drought.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read: <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/isro-successfully-carries-out-extremely-challenging-controlled-re-entry-experiment-of-aged-satellite-1198198.html" target="_blank">ISRO successfully carries out 'extremely challenging' controlled re-entry experiment of aged satellite</a></strong><br /><br />In a joint statement last week, the Kenyan Ministry of Defence and the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) touted "an important milestone" that should boost Kenya's "budding space economy".</p>.<p>"We have direct benefits from space exploration, we are going to be able to improve our food security," Pattern Odhiambo, a KSA engineer who participated in the project, told <em>AFP.</em></p>.<p>With the satellite's multispectral camera images, "we will be able to have high quality earth observation data, this will help us predict crop yield," he explained.</p>.<p>Kenya sent its first nano-satellite into space in 2018.</p>.<p>As of 2022, more than 50 African satellites have been sent to space, according to Space in Africa, a Nigerian company that tracks African space programmes.</p>.<p>Egypt was the first country on the continent to send a satellite into space in 1998.</p>
<p>Kenya's first operational satellite was launched into orbit on Saturday by a SpaceX rocket that took off from California, USA, according to images from the US space company.</p>.<p>The launch, originally scheduled for Monday night in the United States, was postponed several times this week due to bad weather.</p>.<p>On Saturday, a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket took off at 0648 GMT from the base at Vandenberg, California, before deploying several dozen satellites an hour later, including the Kenyan Taifa-1 ("Nation-1", in the Swahili language).</p>.<p>Designed and developed by a team of Kenyan researchers, the satellite is intended to provide data for agriculture and environmental monitoring in Kenya, much needed in the East African country which is currently experiencing a historic drought.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read: <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/isro-successfully-carries-out-extremely-challenging-controlled-re-entry-experiment-of-aged-satellite-1198198.html" target="_blank">ISRO successfully carries out 'extremely challenging' controlled re-entry experiment of aged satellite</a></strong><br /><br />In a joint statement last week, the Kenyan Ministry of Defence and the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) touted "an important milestone" that should boost Kenya's "budding space economy".</p>.<p>"We have direct benefits from space exploration, we are going to be able to improve our food security," Pattern Odhiambo, a KSA engineer who participated in the project, told <em>AFP.</em></p>.<p>With the satellite's multispectral camera images, "we will be able to have high quality earth observation data, this will help us predict crop yield," he explained.</p>.<p>Kenya sent its first nano-satellite into space in 2018.</p>.<p>As of 2022, more than 50 African satellites have been sent to space, according to Space in Africa, a Nigerian company that tracks African space programmes.</p>.<p>Egypt was the first country on the continent to send a satellite into space in 1998.</p>