“South Africa’s contribution to

space operations”

29th October 2015

• 1957: Sputnik tracked by NITR

• 1958: Minitrack established at Esselen Park

• 1961: STADAN at Hartebeesthoek

• 1963: 12m Dish Antenna established

• 1961 - 1975: Support of NASA missions

• 1975: NASA terminates activities

• 1977: First Meteosat image received

• 1980: Reception of LANDSAT MSS

• 1983: Part of CNES network

• 1984: Reception of NOAA

• 1989: LANDSAT TM and SPOT

Space Operations history

• 1998: Ku/DBS band capability

• 1999: SA first satellite

• 2002: Ka-band capability ( first ever Toss)

• 2003: MODIS and NOAA upgrade

• 2004: 5.4m X band antenna

• 2006: SPOT-5 direct reception

• 2010: 7.3m X band

• 2010: SumbandilaSat SA second satellite

• 2010: Established Mission control for Sumbandilasat

• 2010 Established Orbcomm facility

• 2011 Established Ksat facility

• 2012 New Skytrax facility

• 2012 Established new C Band facility for Intelsat

• 2013 Established a new IOT facility for SANSA

Space Operations History

Sputnik 1- 1957

1958: Minitrack establish at Esselen park

The Satellite Applications Centre had its origin in 1958, when the National

Telecommunications Research Laboratory (TRL) of the CSIR agreed to operate and

maintain a Minitrack station on behalf of the American Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in

South Africa. South Africa was strategically situated relative to the launch facilities in Cape

Canaveral, and would give early confirmation that a satellite launched from Cape Canaveral

was indeed in orbit.

1960 the start of a Minitrack station moving

towards a STADAN

Apollo 11 Launch

SATAN

1961-1975 Supported NASA missions

During the 15 year as part of the GSFC network “JOBURG STADAN” received more than 8

million minutes of data, tracked 400 000 satellite passes and supported over 250 NASA

launches.

1963: 12M Antenna established

In 1963 a 12m hydraulic X/Y mounted parabolic antenna was installed with 400 MHz and

136 MHz reception and mono-pulse tracking capabilities. Shortly afterwards “S” band

reception and tracking capabilities were added. Two 5 kW 148 MHz transmitters were added

each having its own antenna. At the same time, two hydraulically driven X/Y mounted arrays

were installed. During this time a new building was erected and all telemetry equipment and

activities transferred. A sophisticated triple redundant timing system was installed and later

the first PCM data handling equipment, and digital command encoder.

1963 First parabolic antenna UHF/VHF feed

1975: NASA terminates activities.

NASA ceased operations in South Africa at the end of October 1975. The CSIR then used

the remaining equipment and a core group of personnel to establish the Satellite Remote

Sensing Centre (SRSC) in 1976 for reception of geo-information from satellites.

• 1961 - 1975: Support of NASA missions

• 1975: NASA terminates activities

• 1976 CSIR takes control

• South Africa move towards Earth Observation data

• Meteosat

• Landsat MSS

• Noaa data

• Spot 2

• CNES Partnership

History continues

Data collected sins 1976

13

15

8.5

0.80.3

11.3

0.2 0.10.4

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Landsat5 Landsat7 Landsat8 Spot6 Spot7 Modis NPP CBERS-02 CBERS-04 Sumbandila

Sensor size (TB)

Meteosat imagery 1977

Landsat MSS (Multispectral Scanner) The Multispectral

Scanner (MSS) sensor acquired imagery of the earth from July 1972 to January 1999 on board

Landsats 1 through 5.

SINCE 1984

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA)

1983: Part of CNES network S Band

• New building

• New LSX ant

• South Africa starts to see the value in remote sensing

• More launch supports for the French Ariane 4 program

1988 SRSC Satellite Remote Sensing Centre

Galileo launch

CSIR and Boeing venture into KU/DBS and Ka band Space Operations

1998- 2002 leap into the Space Operations

Demand for Earth Observation Data requires more

antenna 2004

Space Operations gets more antennas

2011 SANSA

Earth ObservationProgramme

Space OperationsProgramme

Space Science

Programme

Space Engineering Programme

Corporate Services

New Horizon Satellite

Telemetry, Tracking & Command (TT&C) services

• Launch support

• Transfer-orbit support

• In-orbit testing

• Lifecycle support

• Emergency support

• Carrier monitoring

• Antenna verification

• Hosted infrastructure

• Mission control

• Remote sensing TM reception

Space X ISS station support

Telemetry Tracking and Commanding

SANSA Space Operations

A: 11M Ku-bandB: 9M C-BandC: 13M Ku/DBS-BandD: CMDSE: 12M S-BandF: 5.4M X-BandG: LSX H: 7.3M X-BandI: BuildingJ: VSAT farmK: X-BandL: Ka BandM: Orb 1N: Orb 2O: New data antenna

A

B C D

EF

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

Possible site A

Reserved

Reserved

Satellite Seperation

Thank you, and that’s my story.