“I would like to explore Earth first. Then the Moon, Mars, the asteroids and even further beyond. And if the hardware that I am building is out there helping us to do that, it would give me large amounts of satisfaction.” Bryan Dean is describing his personal mission for Dragonfly Aerospace that designs and manufactures satellite cameras for monitoring what’s happening on Earth from orbit. His company is also just about to launch its first satellite.
While Dragonfly’s CEO and co-founder is passionate about space, he recognises that there are “a lot of pressing matters here on Earth”. With his company based in South Africa, the national water crisis of 2017 is still fresh in his mind. “We were worried that the water was going to run out. We were calling it Day Zero, and getting to the point where the dams were almost finished. And then there was going to be anarchy. When there are thousands queuing for a litre of water a day, the scenario gets quite real...