South Africa plays critical role in lunar mission

The South African National Space Agency (Sansa) is assisting Intuitive Machines’ mission to locate water ice on the moon’s surface.

The Intuitive Machines Athena lunar lander was launched into space on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Kennedy Space Center.

Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lander contains a hopper rover, communication equipment, a spectrometer, and a drill.

A Nasa satellite has also been sent along to map the water on the moon’s surface.

Sansa’s executive director, Tiaan Strydom, told Cape Talk that the agency was involved in separating the rocket and Intuitive Machines spacecraft and will continue monitoring it over the next week.

“We will also be viewing the spacecraft on its route to the moon’s surface over the next seven days, where we will play a critical role when they do the lunar insertion manoeuvres,” Strydom said.

“This is when the spacecraft will touch down on the moon’s surface on roughly 6 March.”

Sansa will use its Hartebeesthoek facility to provide telemetry, tracking, and command support services for the space mission.

The facility’s 26-metre and 12-metre diameter antennas are being used to track the spacecraft in its southern hemisphere coverage area.

Strydom noted that assisting in these missions furthers the agency’s research.

“Supporting missions such as IM-2 speaks to SANSA’s strategic goal to increase the generation of space-relevant knowledge and enhances South Africa’s contribution to space innovation and competitiveness,” Strydom said.

“Moreover, SANSA’s role in IM-1 and IM-2 reinforces South Africa’s commitment to fostering international partnerships and advancing humanity’s shared knowledge of space.”

Strydom pointed out that this is not the first time South Africa has assisted the U.S. in one of its lunar missions.

Nasa established the Hartebeesthoek facility in 1960 as a tracking station that operated under the U.S. agency’s direct control.

The facility played a crucial role in Nasa’s space missions, relaying telemetry and communications.

The first photographs of Mars’ surface were taken by the Mariner in 1965 and beamed back to Nasa via the Hartebeesthoek facility.

It was also used as a tracking station during the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon and the 1970 Apollo 13 flight, which was aborted due to the rupture of a service module oxygen tank.

However, two years later, Nasa withdrew from the facility due to political pressures, and it fell into the hands of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. When Sansa was founded in 2010, stewardship of the facility passed to it.

While assisting in the IM-2 mission is groundbreaking for the agency, it has also recently seen success in its own research.

The agency recently announced that it had successfully tested a specialised payload on a suborbital sounding rocket launched from a newly unveiled rocket gantry operated by the Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI).

ASRI was officially launched in May 2024 and operates under the mechanical engineering faculty at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

The institute primarily focuses on developing an indigenous commercial space launch capability for South Africa.

The engineers and their postgraduate students have designed, built, and tested several research rocket motors and successfully launched several suborbital sounding rockets.

Among these are the Phoenix-1A and Phoenix-1B Hybrid rockets, which have had several successful launches, including reaching the African hybrid rocket altitude record of 17.9 km

ASRI’s rocket gantry was inaugurated on 3 December 2024 by the Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Nomalungelo Gina. Its development was funded by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation.

“This gantry is a national asset that will be used to launch suborbital rockets built by ASRI,” Gina stated.

“It can also accommodate much larger solid-propellant vehicles of this type operated by space-faring nations, including other potential international clients on the continent and worldwide.”