Does Africa need its own space satellite programmes?

In November Uganda and Zimbabwe launched their first satellites – PearlAfricaSat-1 and ZimSat-1, respectively - into space.Space engineers from both countries worked and trained with their counterparts in Japan to make it possible. The two countries said the satellites would capture and send back images from space to help with advancing mineral exploration and monitoring weather patterns to help manage the impact of floods and droughts. But in Zimbabwe particularly, the launch kicked off a bit of an uproar, especially on social media, with people asking whether the resources could have instead gone to schools, hospitals and overall infrastructure. Alan Kasujja has been speaking with two African space engineers; Dr Sias Mostert, a space scientist at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and Dr Berhanu Bulcha, an Ethiopian-American NASA research engineer. In their conversation Alan asked them whether Africa needs its own space satellite programmes and if the continent can afford it.