ZASPACE continues to work towards stimulating growth in the space and geospatial sectors
SANSA’s Space Infrastructure Hub (SIH) has secured R4.47 billion in funding as part of the South African government’s plan to boost economic growth through infrastructure development. The SIH is recognised as a strategic infrastructure project and noted as SIP-22.
The SIH is a vehicle for SANSA to use the new funding to develop satellites for Earth observation and various space missions, build a new ground station, develop an expanded data segment and build a new data visualisation centre, activate the satellite based augmentation system over southern Africa, and develop human capital.
To achieve the above, SANSA is relying on its industry body partner, ZASPACE, to engage with and mobilise the local space industry regarding SIH projects and collaborations.
This document records the outcomes of our industry engagement – we’ve compiled the views of people in the industry as to how the SIH can address these seven pressing issues within the South African space sector:
- Local beneficiation
- Building export-ready sectors
- Supporting SMMEs and new entrants
- Industry transformation
- Private sector funding
- Public-private IP partnerships
- The pan-african space agenda
The growth of the South African space sector is not in line with other countries, partly because of limited support by the government through SANSA and other public institutions. This is true for upstream businesses like component manufacturers and builders of space machinery, but it especially affects the downstream sectors that use space assets, like remoting sensing and navigation
This has resulted in five key challenges:
01.
The industry’s financial sustainability is precarious
02.
Local beneficiation is limited because we rely on international vendors
03.
There is not enough access to local, African and global markets
04.
Transformation in the industry is too slow
05.
Too few new businesses are entering the market
The partnership between ZASPACE and SANSA to address these challenges through the SIH should be guided by these principles:
01.
Industry should take the lead in formulating and presenting structured points-of-view and recommendations to SANSA, to inform the three-year plans for the SIH (this is facilitated by ZASPACE, which will also monitor the execution of
recommendations)
02.
“Co-Create, Collaborate, Grow” – the SIH must co-create, collaborate with, and grow the space sector
03.
SANSA and ZASPACE must align their efforts with that of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)
04.
SANSA and ZASPACE must incorporate the end-users of space assets where possible
05.
SANSA and ZASPACE must incorporate the views of, and benefits to, other African countries and organisations
Our President’s confirmation that nearly R5 billion would be invested into the SIH was a hallmark decision set to transform the face of the space and geospatial sectors of our country and continent forever!
There have been many attempts to resuscitate our globally-respected space sector, but none have come at a more appropriate time. I believe there are three key reasons to be optimistic that the SIH will be a resounding success for decades to come:
01.
Our country has been blessed with a President who is committed to leveraging technology to improve the lives of all Africans
02.
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) is undergoing a transformation under the guidance of a leadership team committed to collaboration and co-creation of globally-relevant solutions with industry
03.
ZASPACE was timeously launched and continues to grow and actively drive the growth and transformation of the sector, while striving to provide the single voice of industry to the local and global community
Facilitating the industry consultations presented here was both an honour and a privilege for the ZASPACE team. I was overwhelmed at the level of industry support for these conversations, and extremely humbled by the generosity of our industry leaders who sacrificed their personal time to participate in many virtual meetings. I am especially grateful to the seven stream leaders who volunteered their time to lead the individual consultation streams – we could not have accomplished this without you!
This is definitely a special time for our country and our sector. Our post-pandemic reality has cast a sharp focus on space assets and how they can be leveraged at times of crisis (and how unprepared we were, as a country, to do so).
While the recommendations in this document show the extent of the task before us, I have no doubt that we have the passion and commitment we need to get to work.
We look forward to the next steps of executing the mandate of the Space Infrastructure Hub (SIH) as a partnership between SANSA and the industry.
Kamal Ramsingh
Chairman
Communication and Stakeholder relationships
How ZASPACE will support SANSA
Based on our consultations with industry, ZASPACE has initiated three programmes that will begin addressing the needs of our industry constituents, and ultimately promote long-term sustainability of the sector in partnership with SANSA.
We will establish the Space Technology Fund
The Space Technology Fund (STF) was conceived based on inputs from industry that there is an immense and largely untapped commercial potential vested in the research and academic institutions of our country.
While guidelines and legislation appear to be in place for the commercialisation of research outputs, success stories are few and far between, particularly when it comes to partnerships with the private sector.
ZASPACE believes this is a massive opportunity for our country to re-establish itself as a global leader in space-led or space-enabled innovation. We also believe that the STF can and should be used to stimulate new entrants into the sector.
Our vision is for the STF to be a commercially-established investment fund that will be supported by public and private sector financial resources, including contributions from the SIH. It will be independently run, and will provide various types and levels of funding to support commercialisation.
We have already established a working advisory committee for the STF, which is led by ZASPACE chairman Kamal Ramsingh. We will announce more details to the industry soon.
We will launch the African Partnership Programme
Our industry expects both ZASPACE and SANSA to support and promote the African market.
Our innovation events already support pan-African participation and the formal SANSA mandate includes the African continent as its area of interest. SANSA has executed against this mandate by entering into several collaboration MoU’s with other African space agencies.
It is therefore necessary that the SIH industry conversation be extended to include the rest of Africa. In support of this, ZASPACE has defined and will soon launch the African Partnership Programme, led by Ms Thongwane Namane, Director at SCS Aerospace Group. More details will be made available to the industry soon.
We will regularly communicate the “State of the (Space) Nation”