Launch of Kenya's 1st observation satellite aborted again

Those anticipating the launch of Kenya's first operational earth observation satellite will have to wait a bit longer.

Satellite Taifa-1 was supposed take off from California USA on Friday (Apr. 14) but exploration technology company Space X, cancelled the exercise nearly 28 seconds into flight.

The launch is scheduled on Saturday (Apr. 15).

Friday's cancellation marked the third failed attempt to launch the satellite. The bad weather which caused the delay hasn't deter engineers on site. They took the the news philosophically.

"Ingenieurs, what's happening with the weather, what type of weather is this? [...] We're sorry, it's a very delicate process and a lot of money has been invested on different pilots so it's not good to risk it."

Taifa-1's payload is an optical camera capable of imaging in five multispectral bands with a ground sampling distance (GSD) of 32 metres and the panchromatic band with a GSD of 16 metres.

According to the Kenya Space Agency, Taifa-1 is the first of what is intended to be a constellation of small earth observation satellites that will form the Taifa-1 mission.