08 Oct Looking beyond our skies for space weather

A new High Frequency Digital Radar will be unveiled at the final World Space Week event for SANSA this year at a ceremony on 9 October 2013 in Hermanus, Western Cape. The radar system forms part of the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), an international network of over 30 radars involving scientists and funding agencies across 16 countries.

The SuperDARN radar system is expected to be shipped to Antarctica later this year where it will be installed at the South African Antarctic Research Base SANAE IV.
Antarctic is a prime location for space weather research due to the Earth’s magnetic field lines converging at the poles acting as a funnel for space plasma to travel into the Earth’s atmosphere.

This event formed part of the celebration of space offering by SANSA during this World Space Week with a successful inauguration of a new IOT antenna facility at our facility in Hartebeesthoek, NW on 4 October. The invaluable contribution of Earth observation satellite data and tools for high school learners as well as an interactive platform for enabling knowledge sharing and communication in the area of Earth observation as an exciting new career opportunity was launched on 8 October in Pretoria.