ISC

Mission tracker · updated 2026-09-08

TanSat-1

In development

Tanzania's first satellite: a 1U CubeSat being built by a consortium of Tanzanian universities with INP-HB of Côte d'Ivoire, for deployment from the International Space Station's Kibo module under the UNOOSA/JAXA KiboCUBE programme.

Satellite development procurement completed April 2026. No launch date has been announced.

Spacecraft

Class
1U CubeSat
Size
10 × 10 × 11.35 cm
Mass
≤ 1.3 kg
Deployment
ISS Kibo module (KiboCUBE)
Programme
UNOOSA & JAXA · Access to Space for All
Lead
Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT)

Mission objectives

  • Environmental sensing

    Collect data from environmental sensors on the ground.

  • Reserve boundary beacons

    Track GPS boundary beacons in game reserves.

  • Imaging

    Acquire images from orbit.

  • IoT relay

    Collect and relay Internet-of-Things data.

Who is building it

Eight institutions. If you study at one of them, you are already closer to the programme than you think.

DIT

Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology

Lead institution · Tanzania

INP-HB

Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny

International partner · Côte d'Ivoire

UDSM

University of Dar es Salaam

Partner · Tanzania

UDOM

University of Dodoma

Partner · Tanzania

SUZA

State University of Zanzibar

Partner · Tanzania

MUST

Mbeya University of Science and Technology

Partner · Tanzania

SJUIT

St. Joseph University in Tanzania

Partner · Tanzania

TURDACO

TURDACO

Partner · Tanzania

Timeline

  1. Dec 2023

    Orbital slot secured

    Tanzania secures a geostationary orbital slot at 16° West, announced by the then Minister for Information, Communication and IT.

  2. May 2024

    Space agency planned

    Government states its intention to establish a national space agency, beginning in financial year 2024/25.

  3. 2024

    KiboCUBE selection

    A Tanzanian CubeSat mission is announced under the UNOOSA/JAXA KiboCUBE programme.

  4. Feb 2026

    National space strategy

    Ministry of Communication and Information Technology unveils the Five-Year Strategic Plan for Space Programmes 2025–2030: "From Mount Kilimanjaro, the Peak of Africa, to Space".

  5. Apr 2026

    Development procurement completed

    Procurement for satellite development is completed; the consortium and mission objectives are made public.

  6. TBA

    Launch and deployment

    Delivery to JAXA, launch to the ISS and deployment from Kibo. No date announced.

What has not been made public

We only publish what we can source. These are the open questions we are tracking; if you can answer one, write to us.

  • Launch date and the ISS cargo flight it will ride on.
  • The ground-station arrangement: where TanSat-1's data will be received in Tanzania.
  • The downlink frequency and licensing (IARU coordination / TCRA).
  • How mission data will be stored, quality-controlled and delivered to the agencies that will use it.
  • Whether mission data will be open to students and the public.

Sources

Get the next update

One email when something real happens — a launch date, a ground station, first data. Nothing else.

Working on the programme? Tell us what we got wrong.