--- title: South Africa targets 2030 for its first satellite launch... description: The University of KwaZulu-Natal's Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI) is targeting a 2028 suborbital sounding rocket flight and a 2030 orbital... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/south-africa-targets-2030-for-its-first-satellite-launch-from-home-soil-opsn6wkcf twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: South Africa targets 2030 for its first satellite launch from home soil | daily.dev og:description: The University of KwaZulu-Natal's Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI) is targeting a 2028 suborbital sounding rocket flight and a 2030 orbital... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/south-africa-targets-2030-for-its-first-satellite-launch-from-home-soil-opsn6wkcf og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/OPsN6wkCF.png og:image:alt: South Africa targets 2030 for its first satellite launch from home soil og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # South Africa targets 2030 for its first satellite launch from home soil **[TechCentral](https://daily.dev/sources/techcentral)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The University of KwaZulu-Natal's Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI) is targeting a 2028 suborbital sounding rocket flight and a 2030 orbital satellite launch from South African soil, contingent on securing roughly R3-billion in funding and growing its team from about 20 to at least 120 staff. ASRI is developing the liquid-fuelled Saffire engine and a two-stage commercial launch vehicle designed to put 200kg into sun-synchronous orbit, comparable to Rocket Lab's Electron. The institute is pursuing commercialisation outside the university structure, has signed an exclusive deal with Mura Space to commercialise its Overberg sounding rocket facility, and is in early talks with Cape Winelands Airport about an assembly facility. Its Phoenix hybrid rocket has flown eight times, with an altitude record of 17.9km set in 2021. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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