In April 2025, the African Union launched its African Space Agency (AfSA), which will work alongside the African Space Council (ASC) to co-ordinate space activities across the continent.

‘Africa has lagged behind in the space race,’ Amare Abebe, director of the Centre for Space Research at South Africa’s North-West University, said at the launch. ‘AfSA will help us catch up. It is saying Africa can play a significant role in global technology and scientific discovery. It doesn’t make sense that only a few powerful countries should dominate.’

ASC president Tidiane Ouattara was just as ambitious. ‘From agriculture to security, from climate monitoring to disaster response, Africa’s survival and prosperity depend on its ability to harness space technologies,’ he said.

But Temidayo Oniosun, founder of Space in Africa, was more grounded, telling news agency DW that – as far as Africans are concerned – space is a means to an end. ‘These guys are not thinking, “We want to go to the moon or Mars”. They’re thinking, “I can use this satellite to provide connectivity to my village. I’ve got flooding issues, drought issues, my farm is not yielding, and I can use this satellite data to improve that”.’

Scott Firsing, senior research associate at the University of South Africa, adds another perspective. He writes in the Conversation that space assets, particularly Earth observation satellites, offer several advantages. ‘The continent faces significant climate risks like droughts, fires and floods. This is particularly problematic as the agricultural sector is approximately 35% of Africa’s GDP and employs about half of its people across over 1 billion hectares of arable land. Satellite data optimises crop yields, supports climate-resilient farming and enhances sustainable fisheries and port modernisation. Nigeria’s National Space Research and Development Agency, for example, has used satellites like the NigSat-2 to monitor crop health and predict yields.’

And beyond agriculture, satellites also assist in project planning and keeping an eye on resource-abundant territories while tackling problems such as armed conflict, deforestation and illegal migration and mining.

The benefits of the AfSA are clear to anyone who has confronted the complexities of Africa’s sheer size. The straight-line distance, for example, from Dakar, Senegal, to Mombasa, Kenya, is 6 630 km – significantly more than from Portland, Oregon, on the US east coast, to Portland, Maine, on the west (4 100 km), or from Lisbon, Portugal, to Moscow, Russia (3 900 km). Far more than either Europe or the US, Africa has vast open spaces, where many villages, farms and mines are hard to reach and largely cut off from the rest of the world.

Satellite technology is vital to connecting Africa’s remote and off-grid locations. ‘Satellite networks provide two very specific types of services which cannot be offered by cabled, mobile or any other network type,’ says Dawie de Wet, group CEO of satellite engineering company Q-KON. ‘One is very high availability backup services, and the other is anywhere connectivity. It’s important to note that the backup advantages of satellite services are equally needed in urban as in rural areas, so not just in remote locations. Satellite as a primary service is typically required at an “off-grid” location.’

De Wet says the satellite industry is ‘definitely adding capacity and connectivity options to the African connectivity portfolio’, with an expanding user market footprint. ‘Satellite is becoming the “best of both worlds” option, with the capacity and reliability of fibre services, plus the mobility and convenience of mobile networks,’ he says. ‘From this perspective, the application certainly includes a wide range of options for mobile, aero, fixed and for all other sectors – enterprise, industrial, agricultural, government and social.’

Q-KON recently partnered with ICT company Gijima on the successful implementation of a Voice over Satellite (VoS) solution for a multinational mining and metals processing group in South Africa.

The low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service provides a stable platform that ensures continuous voice connectivity, even during infrastructure failures.

‘Voice communication on mining oper-ations is critical, and in this particular scenario, so critical that if voice communication between operational areas is not possible due to cable damage or network failure, mining operations are forced to stop until communication is restored,’ says De Wet. ‘The smart satellite solution we implemented made it possible to interconnect legacy voice networks located at different operational areas and to provide a backup link to implement a 100% end-to-end communication uptime network.’

Recently, Q-KON also installed a LEO system at the Platinum Health Modikwa Clinic, at the remote Modikwa platinum mine in rural Mpumalanga, South Africa. It marked the first time a LEO satellite service had been used in the local healthcare industry. Use cases like these demonstrate the utility – and the growing reach – of space and satellite technology in Africa.

Speaking ahead of the recent ITW Africa conference, Yves Nahas, a partner at Live Telco, described LEO satellite services as an underestimated opportunity in Africa’s connectivity – especially in markets where terrestrial infrastructure remains sparse or non-existent.

‘While Europe enjoys fibre penetration rates between 60% and 80%, supported by robust rural connectivity policies, Africa remains below 10%, with limited frameworks for rural deployment,’ Nahas told Capacity Media. ‘This creates a compelling opportunity for LEO operators to serve the remaining 90% of the underserved or unconnected population.’

That opportunity – combined with other factors, such as the AfSA launch – is sparking an African space race. A research paper by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) think tank noted that ‘Starlink’s popularity is rising in Africa, where it is seen as a leapfrogging solution for infrastructure gaps and a healthy source of competition for local telcos’.

In Nigeria, the demand for Starlink is such that it recently had to suspend accepting new orders in some of the country’s busiest urban hubs after its satellite internet network hit capacity. Meanwhile, reports emerged in South Africa (which is not connected to Starlink) of some rural farms, schools and businesses connecting illegally to the network.

‘A key factor behind Starlink’s growth in Africa is the lack of competition,’ the ECDPM report notes. ‘Even China, despite its strong digital infrastructure presence in Africa, has not yet really entered the LEO market. China is planning to rival Starlink through its SpaceSail, which will offer an LEO satellite network, and hopes to leverage its existing presence to scale its satellite connectivity operations.’

Two statistics reveal the growth in Africa’s satellite industry and the giant leap required for the continent to catch up with its global peers. In 2025, there are 67 African satellites orbiting the Earth. Just three decades ago, there were none (Egypt’s Nilesat-101, launched in 1998, was the first). That shows the growth. But while Africa has nearly 70 satellites, the Starlink system alone has more than 8 800, with plans for the deployment of at least another 30 000. That shows the gap.

Against that backdrop, Nahas’ assessment rings truest of all. ‘Trying to block or slow down LEO adoption is like attempting to halt AI,’ he said. ‘It’s inevitable, transformative and critical to future infrastructure.’

By Mark van Dijk
Images: Gallo/Getty Images