The team at the Africa Space Innovation Centre (ASIC) at CPUT has completed the integration of the three flight model (FM) satellites for the upcoming MDASat-1 mission.

ASIC Chief Engineer at the French South African Institute of Technology (F’SATI), Francois Visser says MDASat-1 consists of three satellites that will be launched simultaneously into space.  “This will relay location beacons and other short messages via radio waves from ships on the ocean below the satellite to CPUT's ground station at its Bellville campus,” Visser explains. The project had received about R20 million in funding from the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI).

“The team put in extra time to complete this momentous milestone a few days before the DSI's end-of-March deadline.  The occasion is also significant for the fact that this marks the first time in South Africa (SA) that three satellites are built at the same time.”

The next step in the project is the functional testing of the three satellites, including environmental testing that will ensure that they survive the rocket launch and harsh space environments.  The launch is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2021.

Furthermore, DSI recently announced an additional investment of about R18,9 million in the development of two nanosatellites (M2MSat-1) towards increased maritime domain awareness in SA.  Head of the ASIC, as well as the local node of F’SATI at CPUT, Prof Robert van Zyl says the M2MSat-1 will build on the technology of MDASat-1.  

In their recent statement, DSI announced that the funding was channelled through the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), an entity of the DSI, to CPUT, “an institution that is playing a leading role in growing space science and technology in SA.” The university has developed cutting-edge nanosatellites and cube satellites (CubeSats) over the years, demonstrating advanced technological capabilities in the country's space industry.

The department stated that SA needed a more strategic and coordinated approach to ensure optimal surveillance of the waters off its coast, including shipping movements within the country's exclusive economic zone. This will promote improved maritime domain awareness and enhanced maritime security. It is the first such initiative for the country to provide communication services to the maritime industry.

The two maritime industry nanosatellites will be powered by "M2MSat" technology, in the form of cutting-edge VHD Data Exchange System (VDES) software-defined radios for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.

Developed as a collaboration between CPUT and a local company, Stone Three Communications, the M2MSat technology advances the state of the art in space innovation, significantly improving the technology on board CPUT's ZACube-2 nanosatellite, which was launched in 2018.

ASIC has produced two satellites that were launched successfully in 2013 and 2018 respectively. The next mission – the most advanced yet – will see the three MDASat-1 nanosatellites placed in orbit for the purpose of maritime domain awareness, in line with the goals of the government's Operation Phakisa: Oceans Economy.

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
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CPUT Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo congratulated engineers from the university’s African Space Innovation Centre (ASIC) in person when the continent’s first satellite constellation was successfully launched.

The Marine Domain Awareness Satellites (MDASat) have already started successfully transmitting data after they were launched aboard US aerospace company SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission carried 105 spacecraft, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes and orbital transfer vehicles.

On Thursday, the VC and members of his management team joined the ASIC team at the laboratories where the nanosatellites were built in Bellville and watched the launch live with them. The group excitedly tracked the lift-off and then watched the MDASat being deployed about 45 minutes later.

Speaking to members of the media afterwards Prof Nhlapo said it was mission accomplished- for now.

“This was the biggest satellite project to date. Many other projects are in the pipeline, so it is a big niche area. So I say watch this ‘space’,” he said.

“We are a university of technology, and we must dominate in the applied science space; our research must benefit the people of SA. That is why we want to encourage more undergraduate and post-graduate study in this growing field so that the country can keep developing its capacity.”

Acting Chief Engineer on the project, Nyameko Royi, says each satellite will initially make an average of four passes per day, which will steadily increase.

“As satellites eventually drift further apart, we’ll have breaks between overpasses, and as they eventually spread further apart, we will have an average of 12 passes per day. We are also still tracking previously launched nanosatellite ZACUBE-2, which makes it 16 tracking operations per day. We expect an average of 1883k bytes of data to be generated per pass per satellite,” he says.

This data will be used to secure South Africa’s ocean resources, amongst other things.

Written by Lauren Kansley

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Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.