Published: October 18, 2023 11:39 am
Author: RT
A Russian state corporation and a delegation from the West African nation met to discuss joint space projects
Russian space state corporation Glavkosmos hosted a meeting with Malian officials on Tuesday, discussing satellite launch services and technology sharing.
The delegation from Mali, led by Economy Minister Alousseni Sanou, visited the Moscow headquarters of the Russian state corporation, which promotes the country’s space industry on the global market.
Ilya Tarasenko, the CEO of Glavkosmos – a subsidiary of state corporation Roscosmos – said the talks addressed the development of national space projects in Mali and personnel training, among other issues. Representatives of Mali’s trade, transport and infrastructure ministries were at the meeting.
According to Space in Africa, a Nigeria-based firm monitoring African space programs, as of 2022 at least 13 nations of the continent had manufactured their own satellites, totalling 48. Ethiopia, Angola, South Africa, Sudan were among them. Space programs are currently running in more than 20 African countries.
Egypt became the first African state to send a satellite into space in 1998, Kenya put its first experimental mini-satellites into orbit from the International Space Station in 2018, and in April this year, Kenya launched its first operational Earth observation satellite, named Taifa-1.