New Space Success in Africa
Simera Sense forms part of the New Space industry in Africa. The company is situated in Somerset West, Cape Town and is one of many successful space startups in the area. These space companies are successful despite adversity in the area, such as poor infrastructure, little to no access to funding, and troublesome national issues such as unemployment and poverty. These challenges are not only experienced in South Africa but throughout the developing African nations.
South Africa has a rich history in the space industry, starting in the 1960s, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the USA (NASA), built the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The facility was used to monitor probes sent to explore space beyond Earth’s orbit. The facility was transformed in the 1970s to the Hartibeeeshoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), which is still operating as a National Research Facility.
In the 1980s, South Africa kicked off its first space program. The programme centred around the development of an Earth observation satellite, Greensat, as well as the supporting facilities and launch capability. Following the historical changes in South Africa in 1994, due to large scale government and defence industry strategic realignment with critical immediate social and economic priorities, the Greensat satellite program and a significant portion of its associated programs were discontinued.
All was not lost, and a critical subset of the satellite integration and testing capability was transferred to the academic environment. This transfer leads to the SunSAT (Stellenbosch University Satellite) mission, which led to the launch of the first South African satellite, SunSAT-1, in 1999. The activity in the academic environment grew into a university spinoff company, Sunspace, which eventually absorbed back into the state-owned defence conglomerate Denel, with the creation of a new entity, SpaceTeq.
After SunSAT, more South African satellites were launched such as Sumbandillasat in 2009, ZACUBE-1 in 2013, nSight-1 and ZA-AEROSAT in 2017 and ZACUBE-2 in 2018.
The Department of Science and Technology, DST, established the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) in 2010, who has been heading up EOSAT-1 program as part of the Africa Resource Management Constellation (ARMC).
Currently, South Africa is very active in radio astronomy, with large projects such as the MeerKAT project and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The South African Large Telescope (SALT), located in Sutherland, South Africa, is a 10-meter optical telescope mainly used for spectroscopy. Operation of SALT is led by the SALT Foundation, made up of academic and government institutions from all over the world.
All of these activities prove that South Africa is very active in the space industry and that there is a national interest in this sector. South Africa does face many challenges, as is the case for many African nations, which form part of the developing world. These challenges are amplified for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME’s). A report released by the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) in 2016 [1], listed the challenges faced by SMME’s in South Africa as the following:
Poor access to finance and credit;
Poor infrastructure;
Low levels of research and development;
Onerous labour laws;
An inadequately educated workforce;
High levels of crime and
Lack of access to markets.
These are challenges over multiple industries. Industry-specific challenges start with government support to the industry. SANSA is an implementing body in South Africa and faces the following challenges in supporting the South African space industry:
There is insufficient funding for the development capacity within the country to support the space programme;
There is a lack of political will to support space missions, as there isn’t a political level champion for the space industry;
There are competing priorities within the government;
There is a lack of understanding within the government of the benefits of space; and
There is a lack of aggressive marketing due to an immature and uncoordinated South African space economy.
With problems such as high unemployment and immense poverty, it is understandable that the government has problems making large investments into high technology sectors, instead of investing in bringing more immediate relief to these issues. This reasoning holds for facilities and infrastructure, as this also requires large capital expenses from the government.
Startups can, therefore, not rely on establishing initial know-how and infrastructure through government projects. Although, in June 2020, at the inaugural Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSSA), the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa stated: “It is evident that unlocking the potential of South Africa’s economy requires a range of reforms in areas including infrastructure sector market, regulation and operation of SOEs, and the investment climate for private enterprises.” Part of this initiative is the Space Infrastructure Hub for National Development, which is said to support 4,695 jobs. [2]
Another problem that plagues South African startups in this industry is the geographical location. South Africa is a 9-hour flight from the developed world where most of the space activity is.
With all of these challenges, how do South African startup companies become so successful?
It starts with embracing satellite standards and creating focused products which can be successful in this developing climate. Companies don’t try to build entire satellites, but rather focus on the parts at what they are good. This focus has also been made easier with satellite technology becoming standardised, such as the establishment of the CubeSat platforms. South African companies have essentially leapfrogged the old space vertically integrated large space companies and capitalised on the New Space opportunities.
Startups in South Africa also mostly base their market focus on international markets and rely on international partnerships and clientele for the majority of their income. This international focus, not only overcomes the challenges of the volatile African economies and exchange rates but the partnerships within the international community, also make the geographical location less cumbersome.
Local partnerships are just as valuable as international partnerships, and identifying and partnering with key local suppliers and organisations is vital for SMME’s in the developing world. Finding local expertise holds for the employment of key individuals with strong existing domain knowledge. The utilisation of these key individuals is vital for harnessing legacy knowledge, learning from the past and transferring knowledge to the new generation of African space engineers.
Ana-Mia Louw
Ana-Mia obtained a bachelor’s degree in Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch in 2014. While studying, she developed an interest optical design, doing an internship under South Africa’s preeminent optical designer and after that took a course in advanced optics. Her passion for management and optics led to her spearheading Simera Sense, Simera Group’s product development company for imaging systems, focusing on high-resolution earth observation payloads for small satellites with our xScape payload range. Since the start of 2018, Ana-Mia is a passionate, enthusiastic engineer with high hopes for the future of the space industry, both in South Africa and in the world with unified space collaboration. When not involved in the space industry and to stay fit, she literally climbs walls, but only when it is not feasible to scale cliff faces of the mountains around Cape Town.
[1] The small, medium and micro-enterprise sector of South Africa, Research Note, Commissioned by the Small Enterprise Development Agency of South Africa, January 2016.
[2] Writer, S., 2020. 5 Major Projects In The Works For South Africa – Including A Space Hub And A New City. [online] Businesstech.co.za. Available at:
[3] Louw, A., 2019. Challenges and the conquering thereof in the space industry in South Africa. In: 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC). Somerset West: 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Washington D.C., United States, 21-25 October 2019.