Four years ago, TRL Space, a satellite manufacturer headquartered in the Czech Republic, made a decision that most European space companies have discussed in boardrooms but never acted on: it moved its manufacturing capability to Africa.
Not a training programme, not a memorandum of understanding, not a feasibility study. A cleanroom, a local engineering team, and a satellite under construction in Kigali.
That satellite, TROLL NG, Rwanda’s first registered commercial satellite, is now in its final stages of preparation, with a launch window set for the second half of 2027. Jakub Janík, TRL Space’s Foreign Affairs Manager, was in Libreville for the NewSpace Africa Conference 2026, attending the event for the first time after four years of keeping its head down and building.
TRL Space has spent four years building in Rwanda without making much noise about it. The NewSpace Africa Conference 2026 is the first time the company has attended this event, and the timing is deliberate.
“We have been doing it quietly, focused on delivery rather than presence,” Janík says. “This conference is the moment to step out of that mode.” The reason is practical: the conversations that matter, with African space agency decision-makers, development finance institutions, and peer companies, do not happen over email. They happen in rooms where space is the shared context and the relevant people are actually present.
Janík measures the conference’s value in two ways. First, qualified pipeline: specific conversations with counterparts in countries where TRL Space’s EO and satellite manufacturing capability addresses a real, funded need. Second, competitive intelligence: understanding where other African and European companies are investing and where the market is moving. “The competitive landscape in African space is changing fast,” he says, “and it is better understood in person than from press releases.”
Source: https://spaceinafrica.com/2026/05/06/from-kigali-to-orbit-trl-space-and-the-quiet-revolution-happening-in-rwandas-cleanrooms/