The South African National Space Agency continues to monitor the effects of space weather across the continent. Its work is perhaps underappreciated but it is now searching for growth and looking to help integrate space-knowledge with government decision making, for the benefit of SA society.

You might not know it, but your business has and will potentially be affected by space weather. Space weather is a scientific field that has been studied for many years, but its nature and effects are still not fully understood. It is defined by Natural Resources Canada as: “A collection of physical processes, beginning at the Sun and ultimately affecting human activities on Earth and in space. The Sun emits energy, as flares of electromagnetic radiation (radio waves, infra-red, light, ultraviolet, X-rays), and as energetic electrically charged particles through coronal mass ejections (CME) and plasma streams. The particles travel outwards as the solar wind, carrying parts of the Sun’s magnetic field with them.”

In South Africa, monitoring of space weather and utilising information to predict and prepare for its effects is a task that falls to SANSA – the South African National Space Agency.

The SANSA Space Weather Regional Warning Centre was established in 2010 with the mandate to develop space weather capabilities within South Africa, improve the understanding and awareness of space weather within Africa, and provide a space weather operational service to government, industry and the public. The modern-South Africa is now well-known for its capabilities in science and technology and this has helped SANSA to grow and develop internationally recognised know-how; know-how that space agencies from all over the world want to share.

SANSA recently hosted representatives from the Met Office, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, RAL Space, and Imperial College London in the UK. The visitors met with SANSA researchers to discuss a multinational space weather project as part of the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership in Space Programme (IPSP).

Critical national and international infrastructures, such as power grids, transport, communications and financial services specifically, are at risk from the adverse impact of space weather. Governments in several countries, including the UK, are now factoring these risks, along with those caused by natural hazards, into risk management programmes.

“SANSA will contribute knowledge on the impacts of space weather on crucial infrastructure such as power grids and the country’s diverse range of technological availability and high dependence on satellite and mobile technology, as well as its ground-based space-weather monitoring infrastructure that could enhance services provided by other nations,” said Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell, SANSA MD.

The IPSP, which will help to determine the socio-economic impact of the consequences of space weather and also build capacity in developing counties to contribute to the international space weather ‘problem’, is well received in South Africa, explains McKinnell.

“If you look at space weather technology currently; the prediction of solar storms has improved,” she says. “SANSA, in collaboration with space weather centres around the globe, has conducted extensive research into the impacts of space weather leading to more accurate prediction and forecasting models which help protect technology on earth and in space. Space weather monitoring is essential for the improved understanding and forewarning of solar events that could lead to severe space weather on Earth. Although impending space weather cannot be halted, constant monitoring allows for industries that may be affected to go on standby and provides important scientific information to utilise in decision making.

“Globally, the technology is moving so rapidly that we can now predict where space weather events may occur and the possible extent of the potential impact.”

And the technology being developed by SANSA and its partners, and the applications that are now available are not just helpful with space exploration and space weather monitoring, they’re also extremely useful in ‘earth observation’, weather prediction and other observational tasks. Following the droughts which have plagued the country since the third quarter of 2015, the SA government tasked SANSA with developing an application that could assist in the overall care of the situation as well as provide ad-hoc information to other government departments.

“The drought monitoring system came out of a need from government,” explains SANSA’s Corporate Communications Manager, Vaneshree Maharaj. “They needed tools and information because the drought impacted our entire population. Apart from just giving the government the data, we’ve created tools and applications and provided training for their staff on how to utilise the tools so it’s all addressing a critical need. We also provide a national mosaic of the country which is given freely to all government departments and they use that for various things including infrastructure development, looking at the growth of informal settlements, where proper housing is needed, looking at our power lines and this helps the housing department and also Stats SA. Space is becoming integrated in the government’s toolkit for making decisions and starting projects but we would like to be collaborating with more public and private sectors to ensure greater service delivery to the nation,” she says.

Of course, just like any scientific organisation, funding remains an issue for SANSA and the business will look for ways to boost its funding in the future but right now it continues to work closely with international partners, both in Africa and further afield, to leverage existing assets.

“We download data from a few satellites which belong to the French Space Agency (CNES), and data from NASA’s Landsat 8, and we also have agreements with other agencies both for access to valuable data resources and for providing assistance in satellite data acquisition,” Maharaj explains. “We download the earth observation data at our space operations facility at Hartebeesthoek. They process, analyse and create applications from that data for our stakeholders who are government departments, SOCs and private customers who all use SANSA acquired data for a wide range of activities.

“We are currently part of the ARMC (African Resource Management Constellation) agreement which includes SA, Nigeria, Algeria, Kenya, and possibly Egypt in the future, and we all contribute earth observation satellites. We often buy data, which is very expensive, so as a partner in the Constellation we can have greater access to African owned data, thereby reducing the long term costs and increasing the affordability of sharing this information with people on the continent.

“We also partner with Ghana where we have a radio antenna, we do a lot of training of governmental employees across Africa concerning water management through the TIGER project,” she says.

All of this work is vital, not only for the SA government and various other stakeholders, but also for businesses on a much wider scale. Space weather and extreme terrestrial weather such as droughts and floods etc can all have an impact on our day-to-day lives and people need to be aware of this. This is why SANSA and the government are trying to integrate the work of the agency with overall government policy and decision making – empowering people through technology.

“The major area of focus right now is our earth observation program because it plays a critical role in the governments National Development Plan, our priority and our biggest stakeholder is society in South Africa,” explains Maharaj. “Using satellite data, SANSA has produced a number of applications like the drought monitoring system to assist in addressing the challenges our nation is currently faced with. Food and water security is also a concern which is why SANSA provides unique products and services to government and its departments for the greater good of the country. SANSA is making progress in terms of the next earth observation satellite to contribute to ARMC which is one of our flagship projects. In the process of developing the satellite we will be developing capacity and the larger space industry in South Africa and the African continent.

“We want to invest in infrastructure and train people so that more businesses can supply the space industry, not only locally but also in Africa. Funding is the only delay in this as it’s very expensive but it’s a big drive and it forms part of the National Space Program,” she says.

We will hear more next month about the plans that SANSA has for boosting its funding and the work that goes into training people. As the agency targets growth, perhaps now is the time to think about how a major space weather event could affect your business – are you prepared? Are you even aware of what could happen and why? SANSA can answer these questions; this is one of the SOCs that is run purely to serve SA society; now would be a great time to show support.

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