Olivia Exstrum
JOHANNESBURG: South Africans can now view their beloved country like they never have before: from 400km high in space.
Satellite company Space Commercial Services Aerospace Group (SCSAG), based in Cape Town, has acquired the rights to distribute high-resolution satellite images of the continent.
The pictures were taken by the first publicly accessible high-definition cameras on the International Space Station.
The satellite company received the rights for sub-Saharan Africa from Urthecast, a Canadian satellite operator.
Anthony Penderis, spokesperson for SCSAG, said although satellite imagery is not new to South Africa, the two new cameras, one of which is a video camera, will allow government departments like Infrastructure Development and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as well as private companies, to track things like land development, urban sprawl and deforestation.
“The whole principle behind these images is that satellite images are becoming more and more usable in a wide range of applications in normal life.
“Satellites are so valuable for Africa because you don’t need the infrastructure you have elsewhere… Satellites are the future of Africa.”
Penderis said the imagery can be used to measure a host of things, including illegal fishing and crop growth. He said in the future satellites could even be used to measure populations.
“Going house to house is almost impossible with the urban sprawl and movement of population.
“The future of that would actually take a photo of an area, count the number of houses and then do the rest on the ground.”
Wade Larson, chief executive of Urthecast, said the technology could also improve service delivery by tracking changes in land and water across the country.
“The information extracted from our data could be used to enhance service delivery in urban and rural areas and contribute to the economic security of Africa,” Larson said.
Interested agencies can contact the distributor, Space Commercial Services Global Information, and indicate what images they would like taken.
Dewald Lloyd, SCSG manager of distributor network and sales, said the high-resolution images would be most useful for mapping purposes and low-resolution images are best suited for agriculture-related projects.
Lloyd said that satellite imagery is less necessary in an advanced country like South Africa than in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has restrictions on flying that make capturing such images difficult.
Lloyd said all images will be distributed through the South African National Space Agency.
Although Lloyd said the news of the satellites had been distributed to all government departments, some departments said they were unaware of the new technology.
A spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure Development declined to comment.