In the mid-1990s, as South Africa’s new democracy was taking its first steps, the government realised that science and technology were important for the country’s social and economic development. Consequently, several policy instruments were established in different focus areas.

“A big one was an exercise done by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development,” says Dr Valanathan Munsami, CEO of the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). “It did a review of South Africa’s national system of innovation to look at how the country was faring and made a number of recommendations. From that exercise, we had a 10-year innovation plan. It highlighted five grand challenges, one of which was space science and technology.”