Kenya's Taifa-1 satellite finally launched into space

Kenya's first operational 3U observational satellite, Taifa-1, was on Saturday finally launched into space after three unsuccessful attempts.

The launch took place at the United States' Vandenberg Base in California, aboard a Falcon-9 rocket owned by Elon Musk's Space X company.

Apart from Taifa-1, Falcon-9 also launched 50 other space crafts into orbit.

Taifa-1's launch was initially meant to take place on Tuesday, April 11 before being rescheduled to Friday, April 14 due to unbalanced weather conditions.

Owing to bad weather on Friday, the launch was postponed 28 seconds before lift-off and pushed to Saturday, April 15 at 9:44 am.

The satellite was built by a team of nine Kenya Space Agency (KSA) engineers, at a total cost of Ksh.50 million. 

The team worked in collaboration with Endurosat AD, a Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer, that supplied components of the satellite's body.