Time 11:30am EST, Friday February 20th, 2026

Presenting Live via Zoom

The Afropast, Afropresent, and Afrofuture of Space Science across the Mother Continent

For most of the twentieth century colonial or peri-colonial powers controlled astronomy and space science research across Africa. The British government, for instance, maintained a royal observatory at Cape Town, South Africa, and the Italian Space Agency constructed a satellite launch facility near Malindi, Kenya. There was little or no indigenous participation in these projects. After decolonization and the first tumultuous decades of independence, African states began to undertake their own space science activities. Nigeria’s Space Research and Development Agency was established in 1999, followed by space programs in Algeria (2002), South Africa (2010), Ghana (2012), and Kenya (2017). African nations currently operate over 65 satellites. With the 2025 opening of the African Space Center near Cairo, the African Union (AU) is instituting continental space strategies through shared funding and infrastructure agreements. The AU’s Agenda 2063 envisions the maturation of indigenous space industries and projects in the second half of this century, not in the pursuit of national prestige but as a technological framework for African sovereignty, security, and sustainability.

Keith Snedegar, D.Phil., is a professor of history at Utah Valley, where he teaches world history and history of science. His chief research interest is in the history of astronomy in South Africa, embracing subjects from precolonial African knowledge systems to the 2005 inauguration of the Southern African Large Telescope. He is the author of Mission, Science, and Race in South Africa: A.W. Roberts of Lovedale (Lexington Books, 2015).