Tunisian Space Agency

The Tunisian Space Agency (Agence Spatiale Tunisienne, website: tn.space) is Tunisia's national space authority established in 2020 to coordinate satellite development, space applications, and international space cooperation for the country. Tunisia's most notable space milestone predates the agency's formal founding: Challenge ONE, Tunisia's first satellite in orbit, was built by Tunisian private company Telnet Holding as a 3U CubeSat demonstrating IoT communications technology and was deployed from the International Space Station via Japan's J-SSOD deployer in April 2021. The agency focuses on Earth observation applications relevant to Tunisia's national priorities — monitoring desertification in the Saharan south, agricultural management across the fertile northern coastal regions, water resource mapping for a country facing water scarcity stress, and disaster risk reduction along the Mediterranean coastline. Tunisia has a cooperation framework with the European Space Agency as a European Neighbourhood country, and is a member of UNOOSA international programs. The agency also participates in African space cooperation discussions through the African Space Agency (AfSA) framework. Domestically, it supports the development of local satellite manufacturing capabilities and space education programs to grow Tunisia's nascent space industry.