Africa is a step closer to setting up its own space agency, with the approval of a planned feasibility study by the 53 member states of the African Union earlier this month.
The African Space Agency, as it would be known, would be intended to help ensure the continent becomes an important player in the global space programme.
The agreement was made at the close of the third African Union Conference for Ministers in charge of Communications and Information Technologies meeting in Abuja last week (6 August).
Ministers said that the feasibility study would also draft a common space policy for the continent, taking into account various existing space technology initiatives.
They added that the continent-wide policy would be developed in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
The news follows the first successful launch of a pan-African satellite by the Regional African Satellite Communications Organization earlier this month.
Preparations for the launch began almost twenty years ago, in 1991, but various controversies held it up until 2007, when the satellite was first launched into orbit - only for it to develop technical problems.
The ITU will provide advice to Africa on technical issues involved with setting up the agency, its spokesperson, Sarah Parkes, told SciDev.Net.
Parkes also said that details of the assistance to be provided by the ITU are yet to be defined but stressed that the union would do everything it can to help launch a space agency that would aid development on the continent.
Jonathan Mahlangu, a South Africa-based policy analyst said that the plan by the African Union was long overdue. "Think of the contributions of NASA and ESA to the development of America and Europe," he said. "A well coordinated space agency for Africa will assist in solving most of the challenges before her."
According to Mahlangu the critical mass of experts to kick-start the agency already exists. "All African Union needs to do is to put up a call to her citizens in NASA and Europe to come and contribute with their knowledge."
But others are more cautious. Peter Martinez, coordinator of South Africa's National Working Group on Space Science and Technology, said the idea was premature.
"A number of African countries should first develop their own capabilities and these [countries] could then take the lead in perhaps forming a continental space agency," said Martinez, who also heads the space science and technology division at the South African Astronomical Observatory.
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Let that idea and any other similar to that for the development and the betterness of Africans be a reality !!!
Ha ha ha!!! Oh my head! , I hope this is a hoax- I mean this could be one of those wild internet scam mails- no offence to allafrica.com management. Ha ha ha!! I need some fresh air to breath properly. Anyway I hope the whole thing is a classic joke. However ,if there's a speck of truth in the article ,then I would be compelled to conclude that we Africans ( especially the pallid and unproductive intellectual class ) have finally buried any figment of hope for the millions of the already impoverished African population to rot in abject poverty and endless decadence . For heaven's sake, lets take Nigeria ( the nation that prides itself of being the big brother in the sub Saharan ) with its over three decades of serious oil revenue cannot, to date , even feed half of its population ,no effective rail system , neither any reliable road network nor any available record of its true oil earnings and expense. Just see the Nigerian police stations and its derelict court houses in the Nollywood scenes. The whole country reeks of poverty, deprivation, ineptitude, malaise, thieving, incompetence and what have you written every where from Lagos to Abuja to Kaduna, from Abeokuta to the River states- degradation is abound. Lets assume that since the beginning of drilling ,the country had decided to properly electrify ( with adequate back-up systems ) , provide safe drinking water ,paved roads and rail networks ,quality schools and colleges ,etc ,etc for one state on an annual basis ,by today, the place would've been an economic envy. Expending even three month oil revenue on a state, by now every state should have had a resourceful economic base and infrastructures. Check out the Soweto slums in Mandela's country or the slums of Nairobi or the hungry walking dead in Niger and other Sahel nations and tell me if the word SPACE AGENCY is fit -for -mouth in Africa. But again, in Africa everyone, specially the elites, everything is a joke, and the rest is money making for the few who lay hands on it. By the time the Americans, South Koreans, and the Chinese conceptualized the notion of a space science, almost everyone of their population was guaranteed a square meal per day. But to even drive between regions within the same country is as difficult as travelling by road from Milan to the Soviet Abkhazia. Just ten billion pounds can unequivocally remove the veil and revive the continents failing agric sector by governments engaging every farmer to produce enough food, and in five years time food sustenance would be like the green pastures of the rains. The only reason these 'book worms are even thinking of the space concept is for them to create another thieving agency with loans from the west. But again this whole story could just be a wild African joke plying its traditional route - lumpen circles. For the outsiders, in Africa you only come there amass your wealth .win your converts, leave the continent for the Africans, with their sunshine, poverty and their hopes. Now I know why for Africa its now a scientific fact that ignorance is a disease. Just too many educated ignorants and you know what, ignorance is far expensive than illiteracy. Oh Africa, what has God wrought!