{"id":644245,"date":"2026-05-02T07:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T05:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644245"},"modified":"2026-05-02T07:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T05:27:39","slug":"tiny-victorian-village-called-south-africas-most-haunted-is-critically-important-for-missions-to-return-humans-to-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/science\/644245-tiny-victorian-village-called-south-africas-most-haunted-is-critically-important-for-missions-to-return-humans-to-the-moon.html","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Victorian village called South Africa’s “most haunted” is critically important for missions to return humans to the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matjiesfontein, a small village in the Western Cape with only around 400 residents, is home to two major projects aimed at communicating with space travellers and aiding future space missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town is in the open Karoo and is home to the upcoming Lunar Exploration Ground Sites antenna and the Lunar Laser Ranger, technologies that are critically important for the future of space travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also the location of the Lord Milner Hotel, a Victorian-era building dating back to the founding of Matjiesfontein in 1884, which is reputed to be the most haunted in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors to the hotel report sightings of two female ghosts, the most famous of which is Lucy, which the town’s official website<\/a> describes as “a vague spectre.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rumours abound of people having seen her floating around the passages and the stairs, wearing a negligee. We speculate that perhaps it’s someone who died in the building.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The storied history of Matjiesfontein has given rise to the town’s ghost stories. It was used as a fortification during the Second Anglo-Boer War, particularly for Jameson Raid reformers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matjiesfontein was founded by Scottish-born railwayman James Douglas Logan, who is also credited as being one of the founding fathers of South African cricket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village was established as a spa resort for the Western Cape’s wealthy and connected at the time. It remains a resort, all built around the Lord Milner Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was named after a type of plant, Cyperus textilis, which the Khoekhoe hunter-gatherers used to make mats and build their huts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Logan laid the railway in the village, which is still used today. The original railway station in town opened in 1884, where Jameson Raid reformers were holed up until 1896, supplied with whiskey by Logan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town includes a historic cricket pitch where one of the first international matches between South Africa and England was played. Logan held a cricket match on the pitch the day before the war broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just outside the village is where 10,000 British infantrymen and 20,000 horses were camped in the 1900s, receiving orders from Cape Command officers headquartered in the Lord Milner Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the Lord Milner Hotel, the town also offers the Reston Villa, the Old Museum Suite, the cottage in which acclaimed feminist author Olive Schreiner lived, and a number of swimming pools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also the Victorian-era bank, church, flourmill and many museums and attractions to explore. There are restaurants, a pub, and guided bus tours in a double-decker London bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire village was designated a National Heritage Site in 1975 and has remained a tourist attraction and resort for visitors travelling between Cape Town and Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A site of critical space exploration technology <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Photo of NASA’s Goldstone deep space complex, similar in appearance to the upcoming complex in Matjiesfontein.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just outside Matjiesfontein is the site of the Lunar Exploration Ground Sites (LEGS) antenna, and beside that is the Lunar Laser Ranger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though distinct pieces of technology, both sites are planned to serve as important equipment during future missions to put human beings on the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As early as 2014, NASA and the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) began discussions about the potential of a deep space complex in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“After identifying several possible sites, a feasibility study was carried out,” SANSA explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The outcomes of the study pointed towards Matjiesfontein as the optimal location that fulfilled all the necessary requirements for setting up a new ground station.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site at Matjiesfontein will form part of NASA’s LEGS network. A network of only three sites in the world, including in the U.S. and Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will provide critical mission support for future space missions in NASA’s Artemis programme to return humans to the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The LEGS mission is to provide direct-to-earth communication and navigation services for missions operating from 36,000 KM in the GEO to cis Lunar and other orbits out to 2 million KM,” NASA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once complete, the deep space communication complex will feature a large 34.1-metre antenna, similar to those in complexes in countries such as Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Lunar Laser Ranger is a high-precision scientific instrument designed to measure the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, down to the millimetre.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ranger in Matjiesfontein is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere, and it was the first major project at Matjiesfontein. It was built by the Hartebeeshoek Radio Astronomy Observatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It combines a high-power picosecond laser system with a 1M Cassegrain telescope that was donated by the Observatoire de la C\u00f4te d’Azur in Nice, France.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The laser system was developed by the National Research Foundation in collaboration with the National Laser Centre, which is part of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The telescope was delivered to South Africa in May 2008, and then combined with the laser system, and the processing software that runs the combined system, which was developed in-house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badri Younes, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation, said in 2023 that Matjiesfontein was perhaps the best location in all of Africa to be part of the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA is targeting an early 2028 crewed landing on the Moon as part of its next Artemis mission. The Matjiesfontein ground station will play a critical role in that mission’s communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Victorian village in South Africa with haunted hotels and storied history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inside the Olive Schreiner cottage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inside the haunted Lord Milner Hotel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The famous cricket pitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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NASA deep space complex and laser technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Deep space communication complex<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Existing deep space communication antennas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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France’s 1M Cassegrain telescope that was donated to South Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cassegrain telescope that comprises the laser system<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matjiesfontein in the Western Cape has one of the most reportedly haunted hotels in the country, and essential technology for future missions to the Moon and back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":644248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[104894,104893,104896,104895,104892,104891,82567,761,5360],"class_list":["post-644245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-badri-younes","tag-deep-space-communication","tag-james-douglas-logan","tag-lord-milner-hotel","tag-lunar-exploration-ground-sites-antenna","tag-lunar-laser-ranger","tag-matjiesfontein","tag-nasa","tag-sansa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644245"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644413,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644245\/revisions\/644413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}