CAIRO — As Egypt announces its next steps linked to a forthcoming space program approved over a year ago, some are wondering why the country's out-of-this-world plans are moving at an astronomically slow pace.

Mohammed Hussein, acting chairman of the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS) at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said in a press release July 31 that “Egypt is preparing to launch a new Egyptian satellite in September 2018 simultaneously with the establishment of the first Egyptian space agency in cooperation with the UAE, Russia and China.” The Cabinet OK’d the law to establish the agency on Aug. 3, 2016.

The plan to establish an Egyptian space agency dates to the 1960s, when a number of space scientists proposed it to President Gamal Abdel Nasser. However, in light of the successive crises and conflicts in the years that followed, particularly the wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, the project was set aside. Some media reports have claimed President Hosni Mubarak neglected the project as a result of pressure from Western countries not to establish the space agency.

Calls to establish the space agency were renewed when NARSS proposed the project in 2013 to interim President Adly Mansour, who approved it in December of that year. Since then, work has begun with the aim to seek sources of funding and establish foreign partnerships to prepare and implement a law on a space agency.