Africa and the new (infrastructure) race to the Moon

Africa was largely absent from the first race to the Moon. But it has an opportunity to help shape the next one, and that race is already under way.

In April, NASA’s Artemis II carried Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen around the Moon: the first humans in more than 50 years to travel so far from Earth.

Companies in the United States are landing spacecraft on the Moon, while NASA works with industry to return astronauts to the surface and support its emerging Moon Base initiative.

China intends to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030 and is working with international partners toward an International Lunar Research Station.

This is not our parents’ or grandparents’ race to plant a flag, collect Moon rocks, and come home. This time, the objective is for a prolonged stay.

Who would gain the advantage?

That makes places such as Shackleton Crater strategically important. Located almost directly at the lunar south pole, its interior remains permanently shadowed and may contain water ice.

Water could support astronauts, produce oxygen and potentially be converted into rocket propellant. Whoever develops reliable access to these resources could gain an important advantage in the emerging lunar economy.

The Moon’s economy offers both immediate and long-term benefits. Helium-3, a rare isotope deposited in lunar soil by the solar wind, could support advanced fusion energy.

However, the more immediate opportunity back on Earth lies in building and operating the necessary infrastructure, including landers, cargo services, power systems, communications networks, navigation, robotics and scientific instruments.

Science conducted in space has already produced benefits on Earth, from improved medical imaging, water purification, and communications to better weather forecasting, disaster monitoring and agricultural planning.

Experiments in microgravity have also advanced our understanding of human health, materials, and biological processes in ways that are difficult to replicate on the ground.

And, this time, Africa has an opportunity to help shape it.

African technology is going to the Moon

Africa2Moon is an African-designed and built low-frequency radio astronomy experiment selected for China’s Chang’e 8 mission, currently planned for 2029.

It will use three small antennas known as Bounced African Low Lunar Spheres, or BALLS, operating together as a radio telescope. This scientific instrument listens for cosmic radio waves below about 20MHz, a largely unexplored band blocked or distorted by Earth’s ionosphere.

The longer-term ambition is a much larger array of 55 antennas on the lunar far side, one associated with each African Union member state. The number has symbolism but also scientific value. A larger, more widely distributed array will collect fainter signals, distinguish their direction more precisely and produce sharper maps of the low-frequency radio sky. The far side can offer a rare window into the early universe as well as solar and planetary activity.

Africa2Moon is not the continent’s only contribution to lunar exploration. The Egyptian Space Agency has partnered with Bahrain to develop a hyperspectral camera for China’s Chang’e 7 mission, which will identify materials on the lunar surface and study the Moon’s south polar environment.

US lunar ambitions

The US is pursuing a very different model from Apollo. NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme increasingly relies on private companies to deliver science and technology to the Moon.

Intuitive Machines reached the lunar surface in 2024. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost followed with a successful commercial landing in 2025. Astrobotic and Blue Origin are developing additional lunar vehicles, while NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin on future human landings.

The result is an emerging ecosystem of landers, rovers, communications providers, universities and thousands of specialist suppliers.

The new Moon race is becoming an infrastructure race. Like the smartphone in your pocket, a lunar base will depend on power, communications, navigation and data networks, but on the Moon, almost everything must be built from scratch.

Communications will be the Moon’s invisible lifeline. Astronauts, spacesuits, rovers, landers and scientific instruments must be able to ‘talk’ to one another, to spacecraft overhead and to mission control on Earth. On the Moon, losing signal will be far more serious than losing WiFi at home.

Before astronauts can live on the Moon, they will need a reliable lunar communication network, and someone must build it.

This creates opportunities for African universities and companies in scientific instruments, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, software, communications and ground infrastructure.

African countries do not need to replicate every part of a lunar programme. They can create greater value by developing specialised capabilities that the wider lunar ecosystem needs.

Sovereignty in the new space age

The countries and companies that create value, African or otherwise, will have greater influence over partnerships and a stronger voice in shaping the future beyond Earth.

The US-led Artemis Accords promote principles including peaceful exploration, transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, scientific data sharing and coordination of activities. What began with eight countries in 2020 now has over 70 signatories.

Africa is increasingly represented in the Artemis framework. Nigeria and Rwanda joined in 2022, Angola in 2023 and Senegal in 2025. Morocco, Botswana and Mauritius followed in 2026, bringing African participation to seven countries.

Africa2Moon, meanwhile, is expected to travel aboard a Chinese spacecraft, a reminder that African space programmes are operating within a growing strategic competition between Washington and Beijing.

Although countries may cooperate with multiple partners, decisions involving technology, security, data, resources and technical standards carry long-term consequences.

The competition over Shackleton Crater and the wider lunar south pole illustrates why. The question is increasingly not simply who reaches the Moon, but, as stated already, who builds the infrastructure, establishes the standards and develops the capabilities that allow people to remain there.

Against this backdrop, African universities, space agencies and companies must identify the problems they are best positioned to solve, from ground station coverage and scientific research to communications, data analysis, component manufacturing and workforce development.

By creating genuine value, they can strengthen their capabilities, attract more meaningful partnerships and secure a lasting place in the emerging lunar economy.

Many of the engineers and entrepreneurs who will shape Africa’s place in that economy are sitting in African classrooms today. For a young student, looking up at the Moon and knowing that African-built technology is operating there could transform what feels possible. It is more than inspiration. It is belief.

Scott Firsing (PhD) is a US-Africa expert and a former international relations professor. He is the director of business development for CesiumAstro, a defence and space company headquartered in Austin, Texas, US. He is also a senior research associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Pretoria, South Africa, which is associated with UNISA.

This blog was first published in the Africa at LSE section and has been re-published with permission from the editor. This London School of Economics and Political Science’s blog is a platform where academics, educators and students can share their diverse experiences and insights into teaching and learning in the UK and globally.

This commentary is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.