Addressing the first day of the Brazil-South Africa Space Industry Virtual Summit on Wednesday, the heads of the space agencies of the two countries both stressed the importance of international cooperation in the space sector. The Summit was an outcome of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the South African National Space Agency (Sansa) and the Agência Espacial Brasileira (AEB – the Brazilian Space Agency) in November, and its participants and organisers included space business associations and companies from both countries.

In his keynote address to the summit, Sansa CEO Dr Valanathan Munsami quoted the proverb ‘if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together’ to highlight the importance of cooperation. AEB president Carlos Moura, in his keynote address, pointed out that the various space initiatives that Brazil had undertaken had invariably involved international cooperation, and that the MoU between the two agencies was intended to strengthen ties in the space sector between the two countries.

Moura also emphasised that the space sector, globally, had entered a period of transformation. “A disruptive and commercially-driven ecosystem has emerged,” he pointed out. As a result there were new players in the space sector, both States and private-sector companies. This had increased the complexity of the sector.

Munsami reported that Sansa sought to stimulate the South African space industry, in all its aspects. The agency and the South African space sector association ZASpace had agreed to work together in four main areas.  The first of these was the co-creation of a space ecosystem in the country. The other areas were space research, development and innovation; “market response and access” (including access to international markets); and economic growth and sustainability.

“Nations invest in space to fulfil national objectives,” noted Moura. These included economic development as well as scientific and technological development. He urged cooperation between the two countries to develop both their space sectors, and observed that South Africa and Brazil could lead the way for space cooperation between Africa and South America in general, two continents which shared the South Atlantic.

The two countries had agreed to a number of areas in which to develop such cooperation, pointed out Munsami. Four of these were – the development of satellites, personnel and student exchanges, space science (including space weather), and Earth observation. “I’m quite positive in terms of what will come out of this [bilateral summit] conversation,” he affirmed.