On Monday, the government of Tunisia launched its first satellite manufactured local.
Tunisia hopes it will inspire young engineers to reach for the stars at home rather than join those migrating to overseas.
Tunisia is the first country in the Maghreb to manufacture its own satellite and the sixth on the African continent.
The satellite, called Challenge-1, is intended for the Internet connectivity.
Challenge-1 was built by a team from telecommunications giant TelNet.
It blasted off along with 37 other satellites aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
Tunisia says it hopes to launch 20 more in the next three years in partnership with other African countries.
It’s a source of pride to have taken part in this project,” said Khalil Chiha, 27, who trained at Tunisia’s National Engineering School in the central city of Sfax.
Tunisia had been struck by 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.
Many of the Challenge-1 engineers were educated in Tunisia and are aged between 25 and 30 years old.
Officials hope the success will show young people that there is a future for them in the North African nation.
While the aerospace industry is in full development in the Arab world, and 11 countries have launched satellites across Africa, making a homemade satellite is a harder task.
The African space market is now worth over $7 billion annually, according to the website Space in Africa, which reports that it ”is likely to grow over 40 percent in the next five years”.
