Kenya launches ClimCam to space for real-time weather monitoring

The payload was launched on Saturday, April 11, at 1:41pm East African Time aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL NG-24 commercial resupply mission, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

According to KSA, the spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket’s first stage approximately seven minutes after liftoff and is expected to dock with the ISS on Monday, April 13, as part of its scheduled resupply mission.

ClimCam is one of several scientific payloads aboard the mission and will be hosted on the ISS for experimentation and demonstration purposes. The project was developed jointly by the Kenya Space Agency, the Egyptian Space Agency (EgSA), and the Uganda National Space Programme.

The development process included assembly, integration and testing in Cairo, followed by additional validation and fit checks conducted in Houston, Texas, in collaboration with Airbus facilities.

Equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities, the payload is designed to generate near real-time climate and weather data to support environmental monitoring, disaster response, natural resource management, and climate resilience efforts across Eastern Africa.

The consortium behind ClimCam was selected through a competitive global process under the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Access to Space for All initiative, in partnership with Airbus Defence and Space.

KSA said the mission highlights growing African participation in space science and strengthens regional cooperation in developing advanced Earth observation technologies.

The agency is expected to provide further updates following the payload’s successful docking and integration aboard the ISS.