On May 16, Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom announced that his department had committed R232-million over the next three financial years for the development of South Africa’s next earth observation microsatellite. “Through the South African National Space Agency (Sansa), we are further developing the country’s capacity to design, build, maintain and possibly even launch satellites,” he affirmed. “This satellite will greatly enhance Africa’s ability to monitor and manage its precious natural resources.” He also reported that Sansa’s total budget for this (2013/14) financial year was R111 708 000.

The bulk of South Africa’s satellite design and assembly expertise is vested in Sun Space and Information Systems (SunSpace), a company that is effectively insolvent. Late last year, the government stated that it would not take an equity stake in SunSpace but would seek ways to retain its core capability (technical staff and expertise) although not specifying how this would be done. In his Budget Vote address to the House of Assembly, in Cape Town, on May 16, Hanekom stated that the “process to transfer the capabilities and intellectual property of SunSpace into a continued satellite programme is being pursued through the services of a business rescue plan”.

Sansa has indicated that the development and assembly of the country’s next satellite will take five years, with launch in 2018 or 2019, depending on launcher choice and availability. The end of last year saw the end of the new satellite development user requirement consultation process, which has allowed Sansa to determine what instruments the new satellite should carry to meet the greatest number of national earth observation needs, while remaining within budget and producing a robust spacecraft.

“We are currently in the definition phase of the mission development process,” explains Sansa space programme manager François Denner. “This will be followed by the design and development phase, the launch and early operations phase, full mission operations and, finally, the end of life phase. We aim for a five to seven year operational life. The definition phase will conclude at the end of this month with the final specifications for the satellite based on the concept that was developed to respond to the African Resources and Environmental Management Constellation (ARMC) mission requirements and the specific user requirements of the national user community. That will allow us to go the design and development phase by around October this year.”

“Concept development was concluded earlier this year,” reports Sansa CEO Dr Sandile Malinga. “We also have to be mindful of new satellites being developed [in other countries]. There is no need to duplicate them. Also, we need to consistently calibrate with the requirements of our African partners.” (The ARMC partner countries are South Africa, Algeria, Kenya and Nigeria.)

Stimulating the Economy
Part of the concept phase highlighted the importance of the development of earth observation products and services, research and development (R&D) projects by South African institutions, agencies and companies, in addition to the development of the satellite and its component systems and subsystems. This component of the mission will be implemented through the Sansa Earth Observation directorate and provides for the development of the various applications that will use the data obtained from the satellite (once it is in orbit) to deliver various products and applications to the large numbers of users. Sansa expects to soon set a date for the submission of these R&D projects – the date is likely to be before the end of this year.

Sansa hopes to use its new earth observation satellite programme to consolidate the South African space industry. “There is a lot of fragmentation on the space [industry] side,” affirms Malinga. “Quite apart from engineering capacity, there are many geospatial information systems companies in the country – over 50, many of them very small. We want to partner with them to help them develop. The aim is to stimulate and sustain the economy. That’s very important for our country.”

The agency has been in talks with the Department of Trade and Industry, the Aerospace Industry Support Initiative, the National Aerospace Centre and with the local aerospace industry. In addition, it is hoping that the Technology Innovation Agency will assist the new satellite programme by facilitating the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in, notably, the development of earth obser- vation applications and perhaps by providing some extra funding.

“Let’s talk about the engineering side. At Sansa, we are not looking at developing satellites directly. The best way is to do it in cooperation with industry,” affirms Malinga. “SA Incorporated – that’s what we’ve been talking about for some time, regarding space. South African companies, big and small, coming together with Sansa, each with its own niche.”

Space, he highlights, can stimulate innovation in many areas of the economy. The satellite will use solar power systems – a technology that can also be applied on earth. “In space, you are looking at very energy efficient systems. This know-how can be applied to energy systems on earth.” Producing components and systems for space requires high-precision engineering and manufacturing and the miniaturisation of components. Moreover, the huge temper- ature ranges in space require the use of thermally stable materials. All these high-standard requirements can strengthen South African companies, moving them up the value-added chain. “We hope to have an impact in all these areas, through developing our own satellites,” affirms Malinga. “We focus on space, but we want to make an impact on earth.”

Then there are the high-technology skills that the programme will develop. “Plans are well advanced for us to launch, this year, a human capital development programme focused on space engineering,” assures Denner. “It will cover student development as well as professional development. The professional development aspect will really focus on internships, in partnership with industry.”

More widely, Sansa wants to encourage more Cubesat projects in South Africa. Cubesats are nano satellites with, usually, dimensions of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm (some are a little bigger and some are more oblongs than cubes). Internationally and locally, these are increasingly popular projects for science and engineering post-graduate students and industry interns.

Currently, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Stellenbosch University and Denel Dynamics have Cubesat projects, namely ZACube-1, QB50 and DynaCube respectively, while the South African Radio Amatuer Society is well advanced with their development of the SA-AMSAT (also known as Kletskous, which translates into English as Chatterbox). ZACube-1, which is 30 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm, should be launched with other Cubesats from around the world on a Russian rocket towards the end of this year. It has, as its main payload, a beacon that will be used in the calibration of Sansa’s radar installations in Antarctica.

“We want an environment in which more and more people can participate in Cubesat programmes,” states Denner. “We are holding talks with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) as well as with the South African Council for Space Affairs [South Africa’s space regulatory body] with regard to this. Cubesats provide great opportunities for skills development, which will be required as the space programme ramps up. The regulatory environment in South Africa still needs to be formalised in such a way that Cubesat developers know what regulations apply to them and what paperwork is required – licensing requirements impose extra costs on Cubesat developers.”

Another problem for would-be Cubesat developers is access to space facilities for the various tests that need to be performed on these satellites, such as vibration, vacuum, thermal and electromagnetic compatibility tests. “We want to make these facilities easily available, at reasonable cost or for free.”

Mission Benefits
The beneficial impact of the satellite imagery itself, which can be used for many purposes in many sectors of the economy and government, must never be forgotten. “It is very important and very useful for South Africa to own its own satellite,” opines Sansa earth observation MD Dr Jane Olwoch. “Satellites are expensive, until you compare the benefits to the investment. Currently, we’re using other countries’ satellites. That means we are not getting the data as fast and we do not have access to other areas of the globe. With our own satellite, we will get the data instantly it makes a pass over South Africa and we will be able to get imagery of other parts of the planet.”

Sansa’s next satellite is intended to be comparable to France’s current Spot 6 earth observation satellite, in terms of spatial and spectral characteristics and width of the swath, and considerably better than those for Spot 5 (which is extensively used in government departments, public utility companies such as Eskom, science councils and universities in South Africa). The 2.5 m panchromatic spatial resolution of the new satellite will enable it to support detailed mapping of the dwelling framework used by Statistics South Africa for census planning. “It will offer improved capabilities, which we are discussing,” she adds. “We are attempting to ensure we will have the best satellite for our areas of interest and societal needs.”

The new satellite will be able to supply data on agricultural capacity and suitability, soil type, vegetation, land cover, land use, water resources and the impact of natural and man-made disasters. This data can, for example, be used to predict crop yields, identify potential areas for crop, animal and human diseases crops, identify soil erosion and use data to provide early warning systems against damage to or degradation of water catchment areas and wetlands, as well as alerting against the overexploitation of ecosystems and water resources. In turn, this information can be used to enhance food security and mitigate disaster effects and assist in disaster recovery.

With access to the data from Nigerian and Algerian satellites as well, Sansa will be able to collect data from almost all of the continent. “Knowing environmental conditions and the state of natural resources in all areas covered by our satellite will enable us to foresee and prepare for global food and resources prices in time,” says Olwoch.

“There will be multiple linkages,” she cites. “For example, water data is connected to agriculture, to disease, to erosion, to flooding, to urban planning and other issues of national relevance. More importantly, mapping settlements – one of our flagship projects – has far reaching implications for understanding available land for agriculture, urban and rural planning, not to mention medium- and long-term human impacts on the environment, including urban heat and climate change.”
Hard Lessons

Sansa learnt valuable lessons from its first satellite programme, the Sumbandila micro satellite. (Sumbandila, a prototype satellite, failed in 2011 after operating in space for less than two years, a shorter life span than hoped for.) “Sumbandila was an experiment in using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components. In many respects it was a success,” points out Denner. “We now have a space heritage in COTS components instead to having to use very expensive space-certified components. “Sumbandila also showed that we in South Africa had the technical capacity to develop such a satellite. We also realised that, through some impressive mission control software innovation, we can be better prepared for future missions. We were forced to develop some innovative solutions to control system failures on Sumbandila. Another important lesson was the need to develop applications for a satellite from the very beginning of a programme, and not first put the spacecraft in orbit and then discover there are constraints on what can be done with it.”

The satellite’s failure was due to especially severe radiation, found in a region known as the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. “This is a challenge for South Africa, which sits in the zone of the anomaly. We want our satellites switched on when they transit this zone. Other countries can turn their satellites off,” thereby protecting them from the intense radiation of the anomaly. This has also provided valuable lessons. Sumbandila had no back-up systems, so when a system was damaged, that capability was lost.

“We are fortunate in South Africa that we have a legacy from the previous space programme [of the late 1980s and early 1990s] of a ground infrastructure which, if additional investments are made, will give us a great advantage,” he asserts. In particular, there are the test facilities at Houwteq, near Grabouw in the Western Cape province, which currently fall under State-owned defence industrial group Denel.

“Since the formulation of the [current] space programme, Denel has undertaken that the Houwteq facilities will, at least, be kept in their present condition and not mothballed or decommissioned. Not all the facilities at Houwteq are required for satellite assembly and testing – some were for rocket development. We’re quite optimistic that funding from the space programme will allow the future upgrading and use of these facilities. And the SKA [Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project] also requires some of the same facilities that we need to be upgraded.” What Sansa needs for the satellite development programme are Houwteq’s vacuum testing, electromagnetic compatibility/interference testing and vibration testing facilities, in addition to the integration facilities.

In addition, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has a electro-optical systems calibration facility that will be “critically important” for the new satellite’s payload. This facility provides for comprehensive testing of the optical systems payload with highly advanced test benches at the Houwteq facility as well as at the main campus, in Pretoria. With the support of the DST, work is well advanced to also establish a post-launch calibration and validation facility, north of Pretoria, which will provide for the radiometric and geometric validation of its payload once the satellite is in orbit. The need for such a facility was identified as one of the lessons learned from the Sumbandila programme.

However, Sumbandila’s failure under intense radiation revealed a gap in the country’s ground test infrastructure. “A facility that we have identified as a critical requirement is a radiation testing facility,” states Denner. “We have been holding talks with iThemba LABS [Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences] to create such a test facility.”

Reliability the Priority

“This is a high-risk business,” stresses Sandile. “I’d rather have a system that we know will work, because in space you need redundancy. Rather than have an additional sensor, I would prefer the required back-up systems. You have to put in the essential systems and have the redundancy to keep the satellite operational. You need reliable, dependable systems. You can’t have the satellite failing prematurely because there was a single point of failure.”

The agency also wants to involve the public and win their support. “That’s very important for us,” he affirms. “First, we’re looking at young learners at school to participate in a competition to give the satellite a proper name. The intent is also to use the satellite programme to stimulate interest in science among school children.

“Space science still remains far removed from children in many schools in com- munities that will benefit from the new satellite,” points out Olwoch. “We want to start in primary school and tell them that space is not far removed and most of the technologies we are reliant on are related to space technology, like the use of mobile phones and global positioning systems. Developing the necessary skills and knowledge within our country will be a very important societal benefit from the new satellite.”