The Italy and Kenya Space Cooperation Related to the Broglio Space Centre in Malindi (Kenya) and the Development of a Kenyan Space Workforce

摘要

In October 2016, Italy and Kenya concluded a new inter-governmental Agreement on the Broglio Space Centre in Malindi (Kenya), which represents the last step of a bilateral cooperation that dates back to the 1960s. The Agreement is accompanied by five implementing arrangements that identify the main areas of cooperation. Education and training of Kenyan nationals on space-related disciplines are among them. The others address the access for Kenyans to earth observation and space science data, the establishment of a Regional Centre for Earth Observation in Kenya, the support to the Kenya Space Agency, and telemedicine. All the implementing arrangements provide for Kenyan nationals to be trained in the correspondent disciplines. Education and training represent, in fact, the key elements of the cooperation framework drew by the new Agreement. After fifty years, the awareness that space science and technology are important drivers of socio-economic development has led Italy and Kenya to consider the creation of a Kenyan space workforce as a priority objective and the necessary condition for their cooperation to be based on trust and friendship, to become a source of mutual benefits and be sustainable in the long term. Such new approach started to produce its effects even before the new Agreement was concluded. The 1KUNS (1~(st) Kenya University Nano-Satellite) project, run by the University of Nairobi, in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome and the financial support of the Italian Space Agency, represents an emblematic example. The satellite which is being developed under such project was selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, within the United Nations/Japan programme KiboCUBE, to be deployed from the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station in 2018. This paper presents the education and training activities undertaken within the framework of the previous inter-governmental A