Several African countries, including South Africa, are set to take part in the upcoming Africa2Moon mission that will send several balls to the lunar surface. Technically, those balls are BALLS, or Bounced African Low Lunar Spheres. Several universities in South Africa (plus other partners) are responsible for their creation.
The first mission will see three BALLS deployed, in preparation for a much larger mission that will “deploy 55 antennas on the far side of the Moon, one for each nation in Africa, in a future mission to the lunar farside.”
South Africa has balls
The Africa2Moon expedition is being undertaken in 2029 as part of China’s Chang’e-8 lunar mission. Locally, teams from the Aerospace Systems Research Institute at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Electronic Systems Laboratory at Stellenbosch University worked on the space spheres. These are, it seems, now complete and bound for testing in China ahead of the mission.
Several other international efforts will accompany Chang’e-8 to the lunar surface. The BALLS have a very specific purpose, however. They will “observe low frequency radio signals from space that are not observable from the surface of the Earth.” This portion will “demonstrate the feasibility of a low frequency radio telescope array of self-contained small loop antennas or Bounced African Low Lunar Spheres (BALLS) deployed on the surface of the Moon.”
Should it prove successful, the Africa2Moon program will send another 55 BALLS into space. The plan is to create a much larger radio telescope on the lunar surface at a relatively low cost. It’s not a unique idea. NASA plans to build a radio telescope in a crater on the Moon’s surface. Lockheed Martin also has a contract to create communications infrastructure in a similar manner. Heck, even Nokia was in the running to deploy radio services on the lunar surface at one point. If South Africa can get there first, that would be… pretty awesome.
