South Africa is to get its own deep space ground station linked to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), becoming only the fourth in the world after those already established in the US, Spain and Australia.
The South African government has granted approval for the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) to enter into a partnership with NASA to host the deep space ground station.
This followed earlier conclusion of negotiations between the two space study organisations for the establishment of the station at the quiet rural town of Matjiesfontein, in the Western Cape Province.
“The station will support human spaceflight missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. It will be integrated into an existing network of three sites in the United States of America, Spain and Australia,” the South African government said in a statement.
“As the fourth site, it will complement the other three sites and provide improved coverage and redundancy for critical mission support. SANSA will operate, maintain and manage the station,” the statement added as it listed the advantages for the country.
“The station will benefit South Africa in, amongst others, the development of scarce skills and the growth of the science, engineering, technology and innovation sector. It will also provide opportunities to feed the knowledge economy, and increase the national research output in space science and technology.”
SANSA Managing Director, Raoul Hodges said South Africa’s advantage was its location at the southern tip of Africa, with the climate at Matjiesfontein being ideal for the frequency that will be involved in the space studies.
Work is expected to start soon on building the dish antennas, with a height equivalent to a 20-storey building.
“The dishes need to be large enough to capture the faint signals sent from millions or even billions of miles away (from earth),” NASA said.
The cooperation agreement between SANSA and NASA comes almost half a century after a tracking station was built by NASA at Hartbeestfontein in South Africa in 1961 to track NASA probes that were being sent beyond the earth’s orbit.
The facility was converted to a radio astronomy observatory after the original venture ended in 1974 when NASA quit South Africa because of the growing international opposition to the white-minority apartheid government.
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