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- BRICS member states were invited to contribute to the construction of a space station.
- The heads of the BRICS space agencies gathered in Hermanus.
- This is one of a host of developments at the SA National Space Agency.
- For more stories, visit the Tech and Trends homepage.
Russia invited BRICS member states to construct a component of the new space station it plans to launch later this decade.
This is according to Yury Borisov, the director-general of Roscosmos, the Russian state space corporation, who was initially quoted in an article from Interfax, a Russian news agency.
Borisov was speaking at a joint committee for cooperation in space meeting, held in Hermanus, among the heads of the space agencies from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
News24 reached out to Vaneshree Maharaj, of the South African National Space Agency (Sansa), who confirmed that the information contained in the Interfax report was correct.
Maharaj said the heads of the space agencies of BRICS countries met on Monday and Tuesday to discuss avenues of collaboration on space projects and to share their visions for their respective space agencies.
A more complete list of the points on the agenda at the conference is expected to be released soon, but Russian media has provided some indication of what was presented by Borisov at the meeting.
Borisov presented an invitation to the BRICS representatives to collaborate on building a separate specialised module for its planned new space station.
"I would like to invite BRICS partners to consider taking part in this project and creating, through joint efforts, a fully-fledged module that, as part of the ROS, would allow the BRICS countries to use the capacity of low-earth orbit to implement their national space programmes," said Borisov.
Borisov said BRICS member states would be able to conduct scientific experiments from the specialised module.
The Russian space station, named the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROS), is scheduled to be launched into space in 2027 and to finish construction in 2032.
The International Space Station (ISS), which is jointly operated by many international countries, including Russia, is intended to operate until 2030. NASA has the details of the plan to decommission the ISS on its website.
Hosting a Russian ground station
In addition to the request for collaboration on the construction of the ROS space station, Borisov also proposed the deployment of a Russian receiving station in South Africa, which would enable data from Russian earth observation satellites to be received and processed in South Africa.
This was also first reported by Interfax, and confirmed to be accurate by Maharaj.
Borisov said:
Maharaj said that, under this arrangement, South Africa would essentially host a Russian antenna, which has the right specifications to receive data from Russian satellites that are observing earth.
She said this request was "nothing unusual".
"This would be no different than any of our other global partners that we currently offer that service to," said Maharaj.
"We have contracts with a lot of global satellite owners who download data from South Africa."
She said South Africa's position at the tip of the African continent made it a valuable location for countries to have a ground station to receive data from earth observation satellites.
If countries do not have ground stations south of the equator, satellite owners are not able to relay data and process it, said Maharaj, adding that ground stations in Australia are also popular and provide a similar role to those in South Africa.
Other initiatives
These are the latest of a flurry of announcements regarding space initiatives.
On Sunday, 23 July, the Russian embassy in South Africa shared an announcement showing a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the launch of a Russian Optical and Electronic Complex for Detection and Measurement of the Movement Parameters of Space Debris facility in South Africa.
It is believed that the facility will be used to monitor space debris.
In that announcement, the embassy claimed that the CEO of Sansa, Humbulani Mudau, said South Africa would be sending two female astronauts to the ISS within the next two years.
But, on 25 July, Sansa clarified the statement, as it acknowledged that it had aspirations to send a South African astronaut or multiple South African astronauts on space exploration missions, but Mudau said these aspirations were still "years away".
READ MORE | Key SA infrastructure will assist in putting the first woman on the moon
In addition to this, Sansa is working together with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to construct a lunar exploration ground site, near Matjiesfontein, which will be used for communications during the Artemis project.
Artemis 3, which was initially scheduled for 2025, although delays are now expected, is a NASA initiative that plans to send the first astronauts on a mission to the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Maharaj confirmed Sansa would be meeting with NASA on 26 July.
