South Africa targets 2030 for its first satellite launch from home soil
South Africa could put a satellite into orbit on a locally built rocket by 2030 – if someone finds R3-billion and the team building it grows sixfold. That…
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South Africa could put a satellite into orbit on a locally built rocket by 2030 – if someone finds R3-billion and the team building it grows sixfold.
That is the ambition of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI), which is developing the liquid-fuelled Saffire engine and the two-stage commercial launch vehicle (CLV) it is meant to power. Before that, the institute wants to fly a suborbital sounding rocket capable of reaching space in 2028.
Both dates come with conditions. “Timelines and funding are highly related; we hope to launch the suborbital rocket in 2028 if the funding and regulatory obstacles are overcome,” ASRI’s Prof Glen Snedden told TechCentral. “For an orbital launch, we have 2030 as a target.”
The gap between those targets and where ASRI is today is mostly a gap in money and people. Getting a CLV onto the pad would cost in “the order of R3-billion for the total programme”, Snedden said, though the figure dates from 2023. “Obviously that estimate is a little dated and we need to update the numbers.” At current exchange rates of about R16.16/US$, that is roughly US$186-million, which he called cheap in dollar terms.
ASRI is working with a fraction of that money for now. “We have significant funding from DSTI – we received R100-million for the 2026 and 2027 financial years,” Snedden said, referring to the department of science, technology and innovation. “And everything we have achieved to date has cost less than that.”
The staffing gap is arguably the bigger challenge. “Again, opinions vary, but I believe we need to grow from the 20-odd staff we have now to at least 120, and that does not include the jobs that will be created in suppliers and ancillary industry,” he said. Of that complement, ASRI counted 16 engineers in late 2024.
A sixfold increase in headcount, and a programme cost 30 times the current two-year allocation, are not things a university research institute absorbs easily, which is why ASRI wants out of the university.
Full ASRI documentary released in 2024
Working inside a university brings advantages and restrictions, Snedden said, and ASRI is now working with its board, UKZN structures and the DSTI on a path to commercialise at least part of its activities. “We are very serious about reaching our goal of launching satellites from South African soil and to do that we have to see significant growth in staff and the scale of our facilities and that cannot be achieved purely within the university,” he said.
That turn has already started. In October 2025, ASRI signed an exclusive agreement with local company Mura Space to commercialise the sounding rocket launch facility at the Denel Overberg Test Range near Arniston. Mura has announced a pipeline of suborbital campaigns for 2026, some targeting the 100km Kármán line – but those are flights by international teams using ASRI’s gantry, not ASRI vehicles. The institute’s own space-capable rocket remains a 2028 target. Neither…