from Hacker News

Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

by bekman on 12/20/19, 10:04 AM with 139 comments

by rburhum on 12/23/19, 3:48 PM
I am very familiar with the purchasing process of satellites by LATAM countries. Basically the Chinese or the French (i.e. Airbus) come in and offer you a satellite that ranges between 180M-380M USD in price depending on what you want. The price includes a building with a ground station, the launch, and some basic training. If you negotiate correctly, the full telemetry is send only to you and you process it all locally. If you don’t, then they have a hook on you and hand hold you through the entire process - at an additional cost.
Additionally, after a country purchases one, they tend to have their own development path for the future ones.
For example, the Argentinians did their first four satellites with the help of the US (SAC-A, SAC-B, SAC-C, SAC-D), the next two were done by themselves (ARSAT-1, ARSAT-2), two more with the Italians (SAOCOM-A, SAOCOM-B) and one with the Brazilians (SABIA-MAR).
It is a process filled with a lot of politics, questionable monetary interests, and pseudo national pride.
It is the new shortcut process by which countries are entering the space era. Buy a satellite when you don't know what you are doing, then co-build it with somebody, then build it by yourself. It effectively saves you billions in trial and error tests that other countries had to go through... but it really begs the question of when is it truly yours, because if you don’t follow the rules (e.g. taking high res imagery of an area you are not supposed to), “your” satellite can easily be temporarily or permanently disabled... and there goes your 300M
by cmdshiftf4 on 12/23/19, 5:29 PM
Sub-Saharan Africa feels like a missed opportunity now for Europe and the US.
While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity.
Some will proclaim "But they'll owe China! That won't end well!", which is shortsighted, lacking in self-awareness and playing into the "everyone that isn't us is the boogeyman" narrative the West likes to maintain.
In the same time that China has been spending its money on African investment, the US has been spending literally trillions on literally baseless wars, directly costing the lives of a countless amount of people in doing so and upending the lives of countless others.
Good on China, and good for Africa. I hope to live to see that continent prosper, although if any success is in sight I'm sure we'll see the US find some reason to deploy the so-richly invested military there.
by LatteLazy on 12/23/19, 3:04 PM
I mean no disrespect to Ethiopia but no, China launched it.
This is important because the ability to put an object in space is a huge achievement with geopolitical consequences. If you can put an object into space (even low earth orbit) you can put one in Time Square or the Kremlin and no one can stop you. That's why it's a big deal when a country first launches a satellite...
Sorry to be the arsehole here. But it should be made clear Ethiopia has NOT just jumped up on the possible threat scale...
by wiremine on 12/23/19, 2:34 PM
Ethiopia's GDP growth has been on a tear since 2000. [1]
If you visit the capital, you can't miss the Chinese influence. Last time I was there, a huge Chinese bank building was going up kiddy corner to the Airport in Addis.
BTW, if you haven't visited Ethiopia, put it on your list. It's an amazingly beautiful country.
[1] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
by wcoenen on 12/23/19, 2:32 PM
> The Chinese satellite was designed and built at a cost of $8 million, with China paying around $6 million of the capsule’s price
It is odd that the article mentions these details about the satellite cost, but then completely ignores the much larger cost of the launch itself, which should be on the order of $50M.
edit: apparantly it was a rideshare with 9 satellites total. https://www.space.com/china-long-march-4b-rocket-launches-9-...
by VonGuard on 12/23/19, 5:38 PM
Ethiopia is on a real tear right now! The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, came into power about 2 years ago and the first thing he did was release 100% of political prisoners in the country. It's the first time the country has had no political prisoners in decades. He then grabbed all his opposition together and worked with them. The reforms he's introduced are incredible, and show how things can be fixed in a nation that's torn apart for years by dictatorship and war. Abiy is definitely the greatest leader of our modern era. The man took a totalitarian country at war with its neighbors and flipped it 180 degrees in 18 months. He ended the war, removed totalitarian policies, and the country's people can even admit that there were government funded murder campaigns, something that if you'd talked about previously, you'd have been murdered. A great story all around. He heartily deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
by alphakappa on 12/23/19, 8:00 PM
Almost every time there is a story about a non western country launching rockets or satellites, the trolls come out commenting on how these countries need to be focusing on poverty instead of launching satellites. As if science isn’t a way to improving the lot of people. As if science isn’t a way to motivate a new generation of kids. As if all the communications, weather monitoring, and resource management that satellites make possible aren’t ways to improve the place. As if national pride amounts for nothing. As if countries can only focus on one thing at a time. As if western countries fixed all of their social and economic problems before working on technological advances.
Racism has many forms, and this is one. Learn to recognize it and move away from it.
by Giorgi on 12/23/19, 4:21 PM
Wait so China launched it from China, with China paying most of it's price.
How the hell is this "Ethopian"?
by ttttodayjunior on 12/23/19, 3:04 PM
Bit misleading - China designed and launched the satellite, partially paid for by Ethiopia
by zeristor on 12/23/19, 3:45 PM
Why has the title been edited, I posted this story the other day with the "... with China's help" ending.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850364
by pjc50 on 12/23/19, 3:23 PM
Was wondering how democratic Ethiopia was, and:
> The EPRDF won the 2010 elections by a landslide, taking 499 seats, while allied parties took a further 35. Oppositions parties took just 2. Both opposition groups say their observers were blocked from entering polling stations during the election on Sunday, May 23, and in some cases the individuals were beaten. The United States and the European Union have both criticized the election as falling short of international standards. Additionally, the EPRDF won all but one of 1,904 council seats in regional elections.
by peter303 on 12/23/19, 7:06 PM
China is looking for an African location for its deep space network. Perhaps a dual use station in Ethiopia will fill in that gap. The third partner is Argentina.
by dole on 12/23/19, 3:26 PM
Little surprised to see all the ice flaking off the rocket at launch, isn't this a danger to the rest of the booster, lower fins?
by ajmurmann on 12/23/19, 3:04 PM
There is a dead comment by someone whose grandma kept donating to charity for Ethiopia. The grandma died poor save the poster is upset that nobody from Ethiopia ever thanked her and now they are prospering. I don't like that comment, but it is actually quite interesting, especially if taken together with another comment on a parallel discussion about the huge growth in Africa and the very visible Chinese influence.
It makes you wonder how China's involvement has lead to do much growth in such short time, while the West had been focused on providing to poor, starving African children for decades. I wonder how much the attitude reflected in the comment about the donating grandma is common and how it contributed to the connotative lack of results from Western aid efforts. Did we deep down not want results, but instead mainly make ourselves feel good while keeping Africa in a position where they can provide that feeling to us? What concretely is China doing that we failed to do? How will this pan out on the long term for Africa? So many interesting topics in here!