Foundation for Space Development Information

The Foundation for Space Development is a non profit organisation that was established in 2009 to promote space awareness, outreach and education. South Africa has a legacy of participating in space science since the dawn of the space era and in 2008 established its own South African National Space Agency. From the early 1970s South Africa developed the infra-structure to support ground based astronomy and space physics. Research facilities for space science include the South African Astronomical Observatory for optical/infrared astronomy, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory for radio astronomy and space geodesy, the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory for geomagnetism and space physics, The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the South African research base in Antarctica. Several universities conduct research programmes in the space sciences and provide undergraduate and postgraduate level training in this sphere. In 2002, the South African-born entrepreneur and space tourist, Mark Shuttleworth traveled into space. In 2005, a new satellite programme was announced by the Department of Science and Technology. The University of Stellenbosch was appointed as the implementing institution for the programme. The satellite developed under this programme was an 84-kg microsatellite called Sumbandila. It was a technology demonstrator with a main optical remote sensing payload and several secondary experimental payloads. The primary objective of the Sumbandila project was capacity building in all aspects of a space programme, with emphasis in the technical, regulatory, operational and applications development areas. In 2012, South Africa won the bid to host a large portion of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the largest Radio Astronomy Telescope in the world.