Tunisia hopes its satellite success will help reverse brain drain
Tunisia is celebrating the launch of its first domestically made satellite, hoping it will inspire young engineers to reach for the stars at home rather than emigrate.
Challenge-1, built by a team at telecoms group Telnet, blasted off on Monday with 37 other satellites aboard a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
It made Tunisia the sixth African country to manufacture its own satellite and have it sent into space.
“It’s a source of pride to have taken part in this project,” said Khalil Chiha, 27, who studied at Tunisia’s National Engineering School of Sfax.
Tunisia was in economic crisis even before the pandemic.
It faced anti-government protests this year, and unemployment has soared.
Several thousand engineers leave the country each year to seek work abroad.
Officials hope the success will reverse the trend and show young people there is a future for them in the North African nation.
Many of the Challenge-1 engineers were educated in Tunisia and are aged between 25 and 30 years old.
“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.”
President Kais Saied joined engineers and journalists to watch the launch live on screen at Telnet’s headquarters in the capital.
“Our real wealth is the youth who can face obstacles,” Mr Saied said.
He emphasised that Tunisia, facing dire social and political crises, does not lack resources but “national will”.
“We are proud of our youth,” he said.
Challenge-1 is set to collect data – including on temperature, pollution and humidity – over areas without internet coverage, as part of efforts to gather such information from areas beyond the reach of terrestrial phone networks.
The team was supported by Tunisian engineers living abroad, one of whom took part in Nasa’s Mars Perseverance mission.
“It really is a dream come true,” Telnet project manager Anis Youssef said.
While the aerospace industry is in full development in the Arab world, and 11 African countries have launched satellites, making one domestically is no mean feat.
“The club of those who manufacture them is quite closed,” said Ahmed El Fadhel, a Tunisian aerospace engineer living in Belgium.
Mr El Fadhel is the president of the Tunisian Space Association, which is a collective of scientists and students who are interested in space technology.
Within three years, Telnet intends to launch a network of more than 20 satellites, in partnership with other African countries.
“This paves the way for the opening of an innovative service for the region in a rapidly expanding field,” the company’s chief executive, Mohamed Frikha, said.
Beyond technological progress, the satellite launch represents the “opening of local job prospects for Tunisian engineers”, he said.
“Job opportunities exist in Tunisia. The problem is to make young engineers want to stay.”
Officials hope the success will show young people there is a future for them in the North African nation