SANSA

COMPANY PROFILE

2015

SANSA

+27 (0) 12 844-0500 | www.sansa.org.za

company profile

Expanding horizons Editorial: Ajuanne Payne

It has been two years since we last spoke to SANSA here at IndustrySA, and a lot has been happening at the national space agency in its voyage towards a further developed South African space science and technology arena. So far this year the agency has been hard at work promoting education in space science to the youth of South Africa and with its EOSAT1 satellite project proceeding nicely, SANSA is taking the steps necessary to ensure the future of the Rainbow Nation’s in this industry…

Today, collaboration and innovation in the field of space technologies has become integral to addressing the needs of humankind’s existence and some of the challenges facing us globally. The, quite literally, expanding horizons that come with advancements within the space industry contribute to advanced knowledge across various arenas with wide ranging benefits.

South Africa’s history of space investment dates back to the 1950s and the Rainbow Nation continues to take an active role in contributing to the global space industry today, with programs and partnerships promoting projects, research and education both locally and internationally within the arena.

As part of the country’s Ten-Year Innovation Plan, the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) was established in December 2009, through the

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national Department of Science and Technology.

The purpose of the plan is to help drive South Africa’s transformation towards a knowledge-based economy, in which the production and distribution of knowledge leads to economic benefits and ‘enriches all fields of human endeavour’.

Created to promote and provide support for the space industry in South Africa, SANSA endorses cooperation in space-related activities and helps to develop research in space science, while providing support to industrial and manufacturing developments in space technologies.

Operating within a technologically advancing country, SANSA is at the forefront of developments in the industry there and is responsible for South Africa’s role in the wider African ‘space race’.

Marketing and Communications Manager for SANSA, Vaneshree Maharaj, commented on the

SANSA

organisation’s role further, explaining how “SANSA brings the benefits of space science research and technology back to South Africa. Through space science research and technology we seek to create societal capital, intellectual capital, human capital, economic capital and global capital.

“We have to ensure that whatever benefits we bring back create a positive impact on society,” Vaneshree explains. “We’ve got to ensure that we are building human capital by developing the necessary skills of which we currently have a shortage of in this industry. We’ve also got to ensure that we are stimulating the economy, so creating business opportunities with local companies and selling services to international companies.

“We also provide new innovations and technology to drive us towards a knowledge economy, and

we’ve also got to ensure that we’re a global space player, those are the five goals.”

THE SANSA MISSION In order to reach the goal of achieving greater value from space science to benefit the South African people, SANSA’s motto ‘in service of humanity’ is enacted through five strategic programmes aimed at providing a complete umbrella of services: Corporate Support, Earth Observation, Space Operations, Space Science and Space Engineering.

The first of these programmes, the SANSA Corporate Support Programme, overseas the smooth operation of the whole organisation and ensures that it runs optimally with effective operational efficiency and corporate governance within the agency.

The four other arms of the organisation are focused on executing specific areas of research within SANSA. The Earth Observation Programme

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focuses on the utilisation of space and space technologies to address the day-to-day needs of society, for example; resource and environmental management; disaster management; food security; global change monitoring; health, safety and security; planning, development and service delivery monitoring.

The Space Science Programme is aimed at driving scientific enquiry, knowledge creation, technology development and innovation and the Space Operations Programme is the vehicle through which SANSA interfaces with space assets and supports the international space industry. This aspect of operation contributes to elevating the country in the community of space faring nations and promotes collaboration between different international agencies and institutions and SANSA. “SANSA Space Operations provides launch support to many international clients,” explains Vaneshree, “when they launch their launch vehicles and satellites in the Northern Hemisphere, they aren’t able to see it in the Southern Hemisphere, so

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if separation happens over Africa and South Africa then we relay data back to the guys.

“If their satellites that orbit around the Southern Hemisphere are not responding or are going in an incorrect orbit, we talk to these satellites and re-align them so we provide support for orbiting satellites.”

Lastly, the Space Engineering Programme drives the maintenance of SANSA’s satellite manufacturing capability to ensure a level of self-reliance and develop local technologies and skills – a precursor to a potentially lucrative niche manufacturing industry sector for the future.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS As part of its ongoing commitment to education around the space industry, one of SANSA’s most recent strategic partnerships is with the Africa2Moon Mission Program - the agency became an official supporter of Phase I earlier this year.

The Africa2Moon program is an initiative designed to inspire the youth of Africa to believe

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SPACETEO Your African Aerospace Ally Denel as a State Owned Entity, through its Denel Spaceteq Business Unit, focusses on the development of Satellites and related Space Systems.

Denel Spaceteq is currently busy executing a contract for a new generation EO-Satellite with the primary local client and partner, the South African National Space Agency (SANSA).

including a substantial BBBEE component. This includes organisations like Space Advisory Company, NewSpace Sytems, Group6TI and the CSIR all with a rich heritage of space related capabilities and technologies. It also includes the wider industry with both Academia and Manufacturing playing significant roles.

The development builds on the relationship between the Departments of Science and Technology (DST) and Public Enterprises (DPE) together with the underlying SANSA-Denel relationship for progressing the RSA satellite design, manufacturing and data utilization partnership.

The Next Generation of EO-satellite family (generically designated as EO-Sat NG) is based on the robust and modular architecture of Sumbandila, with further upscaling of redundancy and reliability measures in order to conform to the operational requirements of the EO-Sat NG programme. The engineers and technicians from the RSA Industry working on the programme have a rich and proven heritage of successful space programmes, including SUNSAT, SumbandilaSat and an Export Satellite with a proven five-year operational life as well as various international cooperation agreements such as the Korean Institute of Technology Satellite (KITSAT) with South Korea, and Multi-Sensor Micro-satellite Imager (MSMI) multispectral payload with Belgium.

Denel Spaceteq will utilize and support development of the wider RSA Space Industry with a substantial local spend destined for the wider industry,

www.spaceteq.co.za Electron House,15 Electron Street, Techno Park, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa PAGE 5 T: +27(0) 21 880 8100, F: +27(0) 21 880 1703 info@spaceteq.co.za

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that ‘they can reach for the moon’ - by quite literally reaching for the moon through education and science. The program’s main aim is to provide a number of public participation and scientific missions over several years, culminating in a penultimate mission to the moon.

The mission will make all its information accessible, transmitting video and images from the surface of the moon that can be relayed back and viewed in classrooms across Africa, with the goal of inspiring Africa’s youth to believe in their own potential, while also advancing their education.

This project is very much in line with SANSA’s own mission of promoting the space arena for future generations of South Africans. Dr. Sandile Malinga, CEO of SANSA, says “we hope that this programme garners enough support to accomplish the mission objectives and get our citizens excited about opportunities in space.”

During this first phase the team involved in Africa2Moon will prepare a feasibility study based on scientific objectives chosen from those submitted in a forthcoming call for scientific proposals.

Additionally to this, Dr Sandile’s team will be involved in inspiring potential future engineers and scientists across the continent through the series of outreach projects planned. Crucial to achieving the goals laid out in the Ten-Year Innovation Plan is

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getting more young people on the path of a career in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

EO-SAT1 Focusing more on the direct economic advantages SANSA’s work will have for the South Africa nation is its EO-SAT1 project.

Due to be launched in 2019, the EO-SAT1 is an earth observation satellite that aims to monitor resources on the African Continent and is currently being finalised in design and system configuration phase.

EO-Sat1’s primary objective is to ‘characterise the state and evolution of vegetation over selected land areas’, with secondary objectives to monitor air and water quality, survey built environments and support the management of man-made or natural hazards/ disasters.

The project will reduce South Africa’s reliance on foreign satellites for this type of information and will contribute to further collaboration in the development of a manufacturing and knowledge base for the technology locally.

To put the potential benefits into perspective – currently the space agency buys the Spot-6 and Spot-7 (Système Pour l’Observation de la Terre) data, used by government entities such as the Department

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of Human Settlements, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Statistics South Africa, for an expensive R35 million a year.

The EO-Sat1 will cost around R292 million to design, manufacture and launch and is also an example of SANSA’s commitment to collaboration for a better future – the project will benefit not just South Africa, but the Southern African community as a whole and forms part of SANSA’s commitment to the African Resource Constellation (ARMC).

The ARMC is a group of African countries, consisting of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Kenya in the process of launching and operating a network of earth observation satellites. The constellation will support activities spanning urban development, land use monitoring, and mapping for the surveillance of climate change effects.

Although the EO-Sat1’s primary goals are those listed above, Malinga says: “The key thing we want to achieve, aside from the applications [of the satellite’s data], is to stimulate our industry. We are working with Denel [South Africa’s state-owned aerospace and defence manufacturer] to ensure that they outsource work to our private industry. In terms of local content, we want a minimum threshold of 50%.”

This secondary aim bleeds into SANSA’s Space

Engineering Programme and, if successful, the EO-Sat1 project will boost the technical manufacturing capabilities of the space industry in SA, bringing SANSA further in line with its international counterparts and adding to the potential creation of a niche industry sector.

Specifically within the space agency, SANSA plans on the EO-Sat1 being just the first in a number of satellites the organisation will build and launch. “If you have a steady national pipeline of satellites that allows manufacturers to outsource contracts … a national programme cannot sustain a commercial build of satellites alone.”

With barely six years under its belt, South Africa’s space agency is achieving a significant amount in furthering the country’s space industry, opening the door to a consolidated national space program in the future.

Not only is the work of the agency inspirational and economically beneficial to the country, the expertise and skills developed through missions such as the EO-Sat1 position it firmly on an equal footing with its counterparts on the world stage and, perhaps most importantly, advances South Africa further towards its transformation into a more knowledge-based economy

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