Geospatial and Space Agency makes Zimbabwean drones

Mashudu Mambo

IN a bid to advance scientific engineering and technological competences that are conducive to industrial development, Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency (ZINGSA) has manufactured a drone that can be used for surveillance and mapping.

Speaking at the company’s stand at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), Tafadzwa Banga from the engineering department said the goal of producing drones was aimed at reducing costs of buying drones from other countries.

“What we are having here is a UAV 3d printer drone that took about three weeks to be manufactured. We manufacture these products and at the end of the day, we want to get to a point where we own the technology and we are able to support our own activities. This drone will be used in different missions like surveillance and mapping.”

Banga said the company’s aim was to have local technologies used to support their mission.

“We are able to do a mass production of these UAVs, they are quite costly if we try to buy them from other countries but with the current technologies and expertise in the engineering department that we have at ZINGSA, we are able to support the production itself.

“We are looking at the whole value chain where we are able to support the production, manufacturing and the operation of these drones. 

“This is what we have and l think it is quite hopeful that we are able to show what we can do and we hope that we can continue creating more of these,” said Banga.

The space engineering department provides essential engineering support and guidance to ZINGSA’s space programmes and projects. This includes innovations like 3D printing of space components, designing advanced space structures and reverse engineering.

ZINGSA was established in terms of Section 24 as read with Section 25 and 26 of the Research Act of Zimbabwe, Chapter 10:22.

The Agency is mandated to promote peaceful use of space to develop initiatives that promote advances in Geospatial Science and Earth Observation, Space Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Space Science, Satellite Communication Systems and Global Navigation Satellite Systems.