South Africa’s most recognisable indigenous plant is about to become a test subject in orbit. Rooibos seeds will be launched to the International Space Station in October, where they will spend several weeks exposed to microgravity and space radiation before returning to Earth to be planted and studied — part of a new STEM initiative that the South African Rooibos Council says is a first for the country.
The programme, called Rooibos in Space, launched this week at Parklands College’s Innovation Centre in Cape Town. It was conceptualised by the South African Rooibos Council (SARC) and is being delivered with MaxIQ Space, with support from the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), according to the organisers.
The experiment itself is straightforward in design. Once the seeds return from the ISS, they will be planted alongside a batch of control seeds that never left Earth, in a comparative study examining germination, growth, resilience and yield. The seeds will travel housed in a NanoLab aboard the station.
The learners are running the experiment
What sets the project apart is who does the actual science. The study will be carried out by learners from seven schools in the Cederberg region — the birthplace of Rooibos — who will work with local Rooibos farms to collect and analyse the data as part of a structured investigation, the organisers said. A parallel experiment at Parklands College is set to provide additional comparative data.
Judi Sandrock, founder and director of MaxIQ Space, framed the value of the programme in terms of access to genuine research. The point, she said, is to give learners exposure to real research processes tied to space science, and a structured opportunity to build scientific thinking and data analysis skills and to understand how experimentation actually works in practice.
The programme is not limited to the seven participating schools. Learners across the country are being invited to design the official mission patch during July and August, in what the organisers describe as an effort to broaden national participation.
Why plants in space suddenly matter
The project lands at a moment when plant research in space has become a serious global priority. That shift is being driven by upcoming long-duration missions — NASA’s Artemis programme among them — which have pushed international agencies toward developing self-sustaining life-support systems, including crops that can produce food, support oxygen generation and contribute to crew well-being on extended missions.
Rooibos joins a growing body of that research. Experiments aboard the ISS have shown that crops such as lettuce can grow in microgravity, while studies on peas and soybeans have offered insight into how plants respond to altered gravity and environmental stress — findings that, according to the organisers, feed back into both future space-based food systems and agricultural resilience on Earth.
Dawie de Villiers, a director of SARC, said the project reflects the industry’s focus on innovation, education and applied research. Rooibos has long been part of South Africa’s agricultural heritage, he said, and the project places it within a broader scientific context where plant biology, space research and education intersect, while underlining the importance of investing in scientific literacy for the next generation of researchers.
Backing from the science sector
SANSA’s involvement is intended to lend the project scientific credibility. Thandile Vuntu, who leads the agency’s Science Engagement Unit in Hermanus, said space science is increasingly integrated into areas that affect daily life, from communications to environmental monitoring, and argued that initiatives like this one align with national priorities around skills development and innovation capacity — and, more broadly, with building a pipeline of future scientists, engineers and researchers through collaboration between industry, government, academia and the science sector.
Bertram Loriston, Deputy Director-General for Curriculum and Assessment Management in the Western Cape Education Department, used his remarks at the launch to note the importance of cross-sector partnerships in expanding access to STEM opportunities, highlighting the role of initiatives that connect education, agriculture and emerging scientific fields.
A more personal note came from Dr Kelebogile Gasealahwe, a South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town whose research focuses on X-ray binaries. She spoke about her path from humble beginnings in Kimberley to cutting-edge astrophysics, pointed to facilities such as MeerKAT as evidence of South Africa’s contribution to global astronomy, and encouraged learners to stay open to the many different routes into a STEM career.
What happens next
The organisers said public engagement will continue beyond the launch phase as the project moves toward its October ISS flight, with the public able to follow the journey through updates, learner activities and mission milestones. Those updates will be shared via the official website at sarooibos.co.za, as well as on Facebook at @RooibosCouncil and Instagram at @SARooibosCouncil.
Whether space-flown Rooibos seeds behave any differently from their earthbound counterparts is, for now, an open question — which is rather the point. The answer will be worked out by a group of schoolchildren in the Cederberg, on the same soil where the plant has always grown.
