AFRICAN EYE NEWS, Pietersburg | Tuesday
A TEAM from the American space agency NASA has arrived at the Pietersburg International Airport in preparation for a science initiative to monitor the earth’s environment and atmosphere.
Airport corporate relations manager Howard Khosa said a Washington University Convair 580 transport plane will soon be joined by two more hi-tech research planes and the famous cold war U2 spy plane.
The science team will be using Pietersburg as NASA’s southern African scientific base during the multi-national SAFARI 2000 study, scheduled to run until late September.
“The advance team is already setting up laboratories and offices, and is finalising hotel accommodation for the rest of the scientists scheduled to join them later this week,” said Khosa.
SAFARI 2000 will use the U2 to monitor the relationships between antopogenic, physical and biological processes that create the land and atmospheric systems of the sub-continent.
The study was intended, Khosa added, to set international scientific standards for atmospheric pollution, global warming and ecological processes and would include extensive studies of everything from the ecology of the Kruger National Park to cloud physics off the Namibian coast.
The NASA programme is Pietersburg’s first major commercial breakthrough since the airport was commercialised in a 50-year R5bn concession to a Malaysia consortium in May.