China helps launch Egypt’s MISRAT-2 satellite

Egypt’s space agency chief has hailed cooperation with China in the field of space technologies, following the launch on Monday of a remote-sensing satellite into orbit from a launch centre in northwest China.

In an interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), Sherif Sedky, CEO of the Egyptian Space Agency (EgSA), said that China has helped Egypt to become Africa’s pioneer in the space field, with the launch marking a significant development for the African continent as a whole.

The MISRAT-2 satellite,  launched by a Long March-2C carrier rocket at 12:10 (Beijing Time), will be used in fields such as agriculture and water conservancy.

“Using the satellite we can monitor urban development, [and] we can determine the changes of the water level in the river, which is very important for us,” said Sedky. “We can monitor agriculture, [and] we can determine the crops distribution across the country […]”

African pioneer

Sedky said the satellite would also be useful for other African countries. 

“The resolution of this satellite is quite high compared to the previous civilian satellites that we had,” said Sedky. “So having the two-meter resolution will serve a broader sector of interests for different governmental entities and for the different users of the satellite images.”

The space agency chief said that the transfer of knowledge from China would benefit not only Egypt, but the rest of the continent.

Future collaboration

Sedky added that Egypt hopes to deepen the collaboration and explore future satellite projects with China.

“The knowledge transfer that we have seen from the Chinese side is really, really marvelous, and we greatly appreciate it,” said Sedky. “We consider this project as the start of the collaboration with China, and we are looking forward to deepening this collaboration […] for the benefit of both countries China and Egypt.”

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