July 16, 2025
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and Angolan Space Program Management Office (GGPEN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this week in Tshwane, South Africa to establish joint projects aimed at enhancing the space capability and competence between the countries.
“The implementation of this Mou contributes towards the objectives of SANSA’s African Space Strategy to collaborate across the borders within Africa to progress the regions expertise and output in space to upgrade the lives of all Africans and provide a hopeful future for the large youth population,’ says SANSA CEO, Humbulani Mudau.
The Mou contains focus areas that include amongst others, joint initiatives to optimise satellite resources for telecommunications and remote sensing to support socio-economic development, collaborative development of Earth Observation (EO) products and services to monitor sustainable development indicators and enable data-driven decision-making across key economic sectors with experts from the SANSA Earth Observation Programme.
The ambitious proposal also contains specific emphasis on co-development, knowledge and data sharing to enhance Africa’s Space Situational Awareness, data sharing and regulatory cooperation. Furthermore, SANSA will assist in positioning GGPEN’s EO global aspirations through participation in strategic organisations such as Group of Earth Observation (GEO), Committee of Earth Observation Satellite (CEOS).
Another significant aligned objective is the need to support and develop the African Space Industry and working closely with all the Programmes within SANSA, including capacity building in the Deep Space activities and Satellite Mission Control that sits within the Space Operations Programme and the development of new space technologies within the SANSA Space Engineering Programme.
During a recent engagement between SANSA and GGPEN in Angola in March 2025, wherein SANSA supported attendance by representatives from, the winners of the NEOFrontiers Enterprise Innovation Support Fund managed through the SANSA Earth Observation programme, many exciting collaborative opportunities were identified, and the MoU is a means of formalising the partnership agreement. This MoU signing is a significant milestone in the strategic partnership between South Africa and Angola, aimed at enhancing collaboration in space science, technology, and investments.
