Page 23 - EngineerIT December 2022

SPACE SCIENCES

products and built a fantastic new building with a control centre that is bigger than our equipment at South Africa’s base is now
previous one. We’ve also trained a large number of people, going from one and a half owned by SANSA and is used for space
full time forecasters to a full team of eight forecasters.” weather research so that we can improve
our models and our understanding of the
It is great to have a dream come true. Now, in terms of the extra domains you are space environment, that will then feed
covering, do we have those kinds of facilities now? into our operations.
For radiation exposure monitoring, one of the most crucial instruments or networks
needed to get data for radiation monitoring at aviation altitudes, are neutron monitors How are you going to convince the
because they measure the cosmic background. South Africa has a long history of general public that money being spent on
neutron monitoring for research purposes. In fact, the oldest neutron monitor in the the space weather centre is money well
world, still producing data today, is located in Hermanus. We have access to a network spent?
of four neutron monitors, one of which gives us a long history of data. We have access The value proposition of something like
to models from our international colleagues and we have entered into partnerships this is always very important, particularly
with airlines to carry dosimeters on board, giving us some indication of radiation levels given South Africa’s current economic
at aviation altitudes. We build our models on archive data and then assimilate real climate. We are so dependent on
time data into them to give us the actual environment that we’re experiencing, and technology, and it is making such a big
also for calibration evaluation. Radiation exposure is probably the newest field for us impact in our lives, so the first value
and I’m very pleased with how far we’ve come. proposition was that space weather is
One thing that we’ve really grown significantly is our impact on navigation systems. protecting technology. We have seen
This is something that impacts many different sectors because pretty much every what happens when we suffer from two
sector you talk to is using navigation applications in some way. This can be for timing, and a half hours of loadshedding, right?
location or positioning, for example in agriculture or mining when they do precision So, if we had to suffer from 60 hours
drilling, or farming, or simply people on the street who use the GPS just to find the of no power just due to space weather,
nearest coffee shop. Everybody uses navigation applications. we would like to know about that in
advance so we can mitigate against it.
What about the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) project? How Space weather has been around for
important is that in your work? years, so why are we expending the
We are still maintaining and operating our SuperDARN system in the Antarctic. monitoring capability now? The main
It moved from a grant funded project to a DSI funded project this year because of reason is because of our dependence
its importance for space weather research and studies. Antarctica is one of the best on technology. We need to know that
places on the globe for space weather research. It’s like a window into geo-space our people are safe when they fly, drive
because you’re looking up the Earth’s magnetic field lines, which are like a transport or communicate and a space weather
system for particles from the sun. So, if you if you’re sitting in Antarctica, you see capability provides that. We can’t stop it
space weather happening before anybody else. We have expanded our equipment in but we can understand it, know it, and
Antarctica in support of the SuperDARN network. Eighty percent of the shore-based predict it.
The other very important value
proposition is as a science and innovation
application, to generate excitement and
get more people involved in science and
innovation in order to understand what is
happening around us. This will have spin-
offs in terms of getting people involved in
engineering, and getting more students
and learners to go into science subjects.
Those learners will have innovative ideas
that will solve many of the problems we
currently experience.

Indeed a dream come true, that will
benefit not just our science endeavour
but our people, Thank you for your time
talking with EngineerIT. n

EngineerIT | December 2022 | 23