A number of Centres of Competence are to be set up under the aegis of new South African National Space Agency (Sansa). On Thursday, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor announced that the first of these will be set up during the first half of next year.

“We have decided to establish a Centre of Competence on optronics and synthetic aperture radar. It will be called the Satellite Sensor Centre of Competence,” she revealed. “Currently, a core team is working on developing a business case to have the Centre of Competence operational by early 2011.”

This Centre of Competence will have three main functions. Firstly, it will give sustainable, quality, optronics and data support to South African industry, “in terms of innovative and qualified human resources at all levels”. Secondly, it will implement “innovative technology methods and management at all levels of the satellite sensor value chain”. Thirdly, it will develop technology in cooperative and coordinated programmes, to create new and innovative products.

It has not yet been decided where the Satellite Sensor Centre of Competence will be located. The Department of Science and Technology is in talks with a number of local research institutions and universities about hosting it.

South Africa already has significant expertise in optronics and in radar on which to build for the development of satellite sensors. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) will, however, largely be a new area for South Africa.

SAR is an ideal sensor for aircraft and spacecraft because it makes use of the flight path of its carrying platform to electronically simulate an extremely long antenna or aperture.

The result is that SAR generates high-resolution remote sensing imagery. Mastery of the requisite data processing software is essential to making SAR work.

The capabilities of SAR can be illustrated by reference to the still mysterious crash into the South Atlantic of Air France Airbus A330-200 F-GZCP in mid-2009.

Eleven fixed wing aircraft were involved in the post-crash air search, but most of the crash debris floating in the sea was detected by the only SAR-equipped aircraft assigned to the mission, an Embraer R-99B of the Brazilian Air Force – and most of the R-99B’s missions were flown at night.