The South African National Space Agency (Sansa). Picture: Screengrab A new peer-reviewed study analysing a decade of African space science research has revealed that South Africa continues to lead the African continent in scientific output. From 2014 to 2023, Africa published 2 290 space science papers in recognised international journals, according to the research study.
South Africa produced 936 of these publications, just over 40% of Africa’s total output, demonstrating the country’s strong scientific capability in this strategically important domain. The study was conducted entirely by Nigerian researchers, providing independent and objective insight into South Africa’s performance in the broader African landscape. Within this national contribution, the South African National Space Agency (Sansa) stands out as a key driver of research excellence.
Across its space science and earth observation programmes, Sansa published about 352 research papers during the same decade. This reflects more than one-third (37.6%) of South Africa’s total space science publications and over one in every seven (15.4%) of Africa’s space science research publications. “The research cohort has shown significant progress towards the transformation of the research group profile.
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Within the space science group, the gender balance has gone from eight men and only two women in 2014 to nine men and nine women by 2023. “Furthermore, the research group consisted of six white, four black and one Indian researchers in 2014.
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