South Africa and France announce the launch of Africa’s most advanced CubeSat to date

Minister of Science and Technology Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane will participate in the send-off of Africa’s largest and most advanced cube satellite this week. The 4kg ZACUBE-2 has been developed by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and the French South African Institute of Technology (F’SATI) and is the second nanosatellite to be developed at the university. The media is invited to the send-off in Cape Town on 17 April, and also to view ZACube-2 before it is packed and shipped to India wher e it will be launched. ZACube-1 was launched in 2013 for space weather research and the experiences gained then through the French-South African cooperation in satellite engineering, have resulted into the completion of ZACube-2. ZACube-2 is a 10 x 10 x 10 x 30 cm satellite which will track marine activity along South Africa’s coast and proactively detect forest fires through an imager payload developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).