IN SOUTH African waters, beyond the sight of land or any other vessel, a ship’s smoke plume rises into the atmosphere. Its heat signature is written on the surrounding air, and overhead — less than 2,000km away — a tiny satellite is watching it. It is 2019, and the country’s oceans are monitored by a constellation of nanosatellites transmitting live data back to Earth.SA’s ocean territory is larger than its land space, and if its claim to extend it is successful, its ocean geography will double.This is why the government, as part of Operation Phakisa, is turning to satellites. Operation Phakisa aimed to boost the country’s ocean revenue to R177bn by 2033, from R54bn in 2010, President Jacob Zuma said at the operation’s launch in 2014."Nanosatellites were written into Phakisa’s founding documents," says Robert van Zyl, director of satellite engineering systems at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). CPUT houses the French South African Institute of Technology’s CubeSat...
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