Egypt has announced plans to build a new ground station in Cairo to track satellites and space debris.

The station, operated by the Egyptian National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, will be built in Helwan, in the south of the capital, and is expected to be inaugurated before year-end. The satellites that will be tracked are used to collect data or for communication.

UrduPoint reports that the institute already operates a station that uses lasers to track satellites, as well as a smaller station in the Kattamia observatory, east of Cairo, for tracking space debris.

The institute also plans to modernise several earthquake-monitoring stations, some of which are already in development.

5 April 2021
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