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- A delegation of NASA representatives is in South Africa.
- NASA plans to build a facility near Matjiesfontein that will provide communications services for the next mission to send humans to the moon.
- A NASA representative told News24 that the space agency wants to rekindle its relationship with South Africa.
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A delegation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) representatives is in South Africa to rekindle its relationship with the country.
This is according to international programme specialist at NASA, Gregory Mann, who was part of the delegation along with Badri Younes, senior advisor to NASA for space communications.
The delegation arrived in South Africa on Saturday.
Top of the administration's plans in South Africa is the construction of a lunar exploration ground site (LEGS), which is being built in Matjiesfoentien to enable communications for NASA's Artemis programme, in which it plans to send the first woman and person of colour to the moon. The move was initially scheduled for 2025, but it is likely going to be delayed.
It will be the first time since 1972 that humans return to the moon.
To enable communications for the project, NASA is building three communications facilities known as LEGS across the world. The Matjiesfontein station in the Karoo is one of them.
Mann said part of the appeal for the construction of the LEGS antenna in South Africa is its global positioning at the tip of the African continent as the three LEGS facilities need to be spread across the globe to enable constant communication with spacecraft.
Mann said the hope was that the LEGS facilities could be used for future missions beyond Artemis, including trips to Mars.
But NASA does not want its interaction with South Africa to end with the construction of the facility.
Mann said:
He added that South Africa and NASA have had relationship that stretches back 60 years, to when South Africa assisted in building a communications facility for the Apollo programme.
In 1960, NASA established a tracking station at Hartebeeshoek that relayed communications from spacecraft to NASA control centres.
"We've had a 60-plus-year partnership with South Africa, who were supporting the Apollo programme back in the day with an antenna here. We are looking to rekindle that with this new antenna," said Mann.
"We have a partner that we know and trust, that knows what they are doing, that we can feel very comfortable with."
Education outreach
Mann added that skills development in South Africa was an important component of NASA's plan to build a relationship with the country.
The NASA delegation spent the whole of Monday doing outreach at Western Cape schools to get young people excited about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
READ NOW | Key SA infrastructure will assist in putting the first woman on the moon
He said a lot of the outreach was facilitated by Kids Innovate Africa, an edutech organisation that attempts to ignite interest in STEM fields at a grassroots level.
On Tuesday, the NASA delegation met with Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier and expressed interest in finding ways to encourage pupils to pursue studies and careers in STEM.
"We had a great discussion with NASA and Sansa about the ways in which we can inspire Western Cape learners to pursue careers in the scientific fields," Maynier said.
"We need skilled workers who can support advancements in space exploration, as well as the partnership that NASA and Sansa are building."
Maynier said encouraging pupils to take up maths and science until they matriculate was the start of building a skills base.
There are no concrete plans for collaboration between Sansa and NASA yet, according to Mann.
"We haven't gotten to that level yet – right now it's been a little ad hoc," he said.
On Tuesday, the delegation held discussions with Wesgro, a tourism, trade, and investment promotion agency for the Western Cape, to discuss NASA's cooperation with Sansa.
Rekindling partnerships
On Wednesday, the delegation flew to Gauteng to meet Sansa's new CEO, Humbulani Mudau, before heading to the Department of Science and Innovation to meet with the director-general, Phil Mjwara.
He said the sessions were productive, and that they were "rekindling relationships" between South African agencies involved in space initiatives and NASA.
On Thursday, NASA travelled to Hartebeesthoek to see the Sansa space operations facility and meet the team as well as the US ambassador to South Africa.
On Friday, the delegation will visit the engineering faculty at the University of Pretoria where Younes will do a presentation on the work NASA is doing in South Africa.
They head home later in the day.
A BRICS meeting
It has been a big week for space initiatives in South Africa.
Earlier this week, the heads of the space agencies from the BRICS countries met in Hermanus to discuss potential avenues for collaboration and their visions for their space agencies.
READ NOW | Russia asks BRICS delegates for help in building a new space station
Vaneshree Maharaj, Sansa's communications head confirmed the accuracy of a Russian media report, which claimed that Russia asked for help from BRICS members to build a component of a new space station.
Yury Borisov, the head of Russian space corporation Roscosmos said Russia "would like to invite BRICS partners to consider taking part in this project and creating, through joint efforts, a fully-fledged module that, as part of the Russian orbital service station, would allow the BRICS countries to use the capacity of low-Earth orbit to implement their national space programmes".
Borisov also proposed the deployment of a Russian facility to enable data from Russian Earth observation satellites to be received and processed in South Africa.
Maharaj said this would entail hosting a Russian antenna that has the right specifications to receive data from Russian satellites.
The request was "nothing unusual", she said, and it provides the same service offered to other global partners.
