Tunisian President Kais Saied has hailed the launching of the first homemade satellite into space.
Challenge-1, built by a team from telecommunications giant TelNet, blasted off along with 37 other satellites aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday.
Saied joined engineers and journalists to watch the launch of the satellite live on screen at TelNet headquarters in Tunis.
“Our real wealth is the youth who can face obstacles,” Saied said, stressing that Tunisia lacks not resources but “national will” amid its dire social and political crises. “We are proud of our youth.”
This satellite will allow communication and data exchange in many areas including control, transport, agriculture and logistics by receiving data and sending it to suppliers around the world, TelNet explained.
It is designed and developed by exclusively Tunisian skills, TelNet CEO Mohamed Frikha told AFP.
This is a gift to the Tunisian people on the 65th anniversary of the country’s independence, he added.
Tunisia has become the first country in the Maghreb and the sixth in Africa to manufacture a satellite after Egypt, South Africa and Ghana, according to Space in Africa website.
The Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) flew six different satellites in communication, earth observation and scientific missions and is currently developing its “AlSat 3.”
Morocco, meanwhile, launched two satellites into orbit in cooperation with the Franco-Italian consortium Thales Alenia Space and Airbus.
Tunisia is suffering from an economic crisis and skyrocketing unemployment even before the coronavirus pandemic, and recent months have seen growing anti-government protests.
Several thousand engineers leave each year to seek work abroad.
“We are very emotional, after three years of intense work," said engineer Haifa Triki, 28, who followed the flight live from Tunis. “We made a lot of sacrifices, but it was worth it.”
“Job opportunities exist in Tunisia. The problem is to make young engineers want to stay,” she added.
