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FSDA: Built for the people building Africa's space future

When Astrid approached Carla Sharpe and Adriana Marais about helping them build the new FSDA website, we knew this one was going to be something special.

The Foundation for Space Development Africa is exactly the kind of project that gets us out of bed in the morning: fun, impactful, and (we had to go there) out of this world. 

We built developspace.africa on Plone, and we're over the moon about it.

Missions worth talking about

The challenge wasn’t a lack of content. It was scale.

The FSDA is a constellation of programmes, each one pushing the boundaries of what Africa is capable of. Multiple programmes across science, engineering, education, and space research, each with its own goals, partners, and updates. The website aims to help visitors understand the bigger picture without overwhelming them.

The one that's really captured the world's attention right now is Africa2Moon.

Africa2Moon is the first all-African space mission: a low-frequency radio telescope array, built by a volunteer team of African engineers and scientists, scheduled to land on the lunar south pole as part of China's Chang'e-8 mission in 2029. The antennas, cheekily named BALLS (Bounced African Low Lunar Spheres), will listen to the universe at frequencies you simply can't observe from Earth. It's not a pipe dream. It's a selected international payload. It's happening.

Not bragging, but that's the kind of client we get to work with.

Empowered, not overwhelmed

Here's the thing about organisations like the FSDA: they have enough on their plates. They're building radio telescopes and collaborating with the South African National Space Agency, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, universities across the continent, and space agencies internationally. Keeping a website updated should not be a black hole of time and anxiety.

Using Plone 6 with Volto meant we could give them:

  • structured content that stays organised as the organisation grows

  • an editor experience the team can actually enjoy using

  • a platform that can scale with new programmes and partnerships

  • strong security and stability underneath it all

A site that empowers rather than intimidates. The FSDA team has more than enough to think about without content management becoming a problem.

Proudly South African. Proudly African.

What the FSDA is doing matters far beyond the boundaries of any single country. It's about what Africa is capable of (in science, in engineering, in imagination) and about making sure the next generation of Africans grows up knowing that the Moon is not out of reach. That's a powerful thing to stand behind.

We build websites for organisations that do important work. Every now and then, a project comes along that reminds us exactly why that matters. The FSDA was one of them.

If you're working on something that matters, and you need a website that can hold the weight of it, let's talk.

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