South Africa’s long-awaited space agency should be formally established within a matter of weeks. It will be formally designated as the South African National Space Agency (Sansa).

“Everything is in place, except for the board,” Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena tells Engineering News Online. “Shortly after the [April 22 general] elections, efforts will be intensified to put a board together and get Sansa operational.”

This will place the creation of the new agency at the beginning of the State’s next financial year, which starts on April 1.

Sansa will initially incorporate the Satellite Applications Centre (SAC) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), located at Hartebeeshoek (west of Pretoria) and the Institute for Satellite and Software Applications at the Houwteq satellite integration facility in Grabouw in the Western Cape.

“We are hoping that most government space activities will fall under Sansa,” says Mangena. “There will be a lot of re-alignment.”

Even once Sansa is formally established, there will be a transition period that will run for months. “We expect the CSIR to incubate Sansa at the beginning,” states the Minister.

The SAC does not expect to be officially transferred to Sansa until early next year, probably March. Its role will be crucial.

Speaking at the official commissioning of SAC’s new X-band dish antenna on Wednesday morning, Mangena highlighted that, “Earth observation will become one of the central pillars of the new South African National Space Agency, and we all expect that Sansa will motivate a further expansion of South Africa’s satellite engineering and applications know-how. Our goal is to make South Africa a global player in the Earth observation satellite domain, and this includes ongoing participation in initiatives such as global monitoring for environment and security, the group on earth observation, African resource and environment management, the international disaster charter, and others.”

It is also envisaged that Sansa will create a number of centres of competence, which will focus on different space and space-related technologies.

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