Order of The Star of South Africa

The Order of the Star of South Africa was a South African honour. It was instituted on 1 July 1975, and was granted by the state president of South Africa, for services connected with national defence and security. It replaced the Star of South Africa decoration, instituted in 1952. The order was discontinued on 2 December 2002.

Initially, the order was purely military. It was conferred on general-rank and flag-rank officers of the South African Defence Force, in two classes:

• Gold (SSA), for meritorious military service.
• Silver (SSAS), for exceptionally meritorious service of major military importance.

In most cases, initial awards were made in the silver class, and recipients were promoted to the gold class a few years later.

A civilian division was added on 17 October 1978; it was renamed the "non-military" division in 1988. This was conferred on civilians and, from 1988, on senior police, prisons service, and intelligence service officers, as well as foreign military attachés, in five classes:

• Grand Cross (SSA), for excellent meritorious service.
• Grand Officer (SSAS), for outstanding meritorious service.
• Commander, for exceptionally meritorious service.
• Officer, for meritorious service.
• Member (initially called "Knight"), for exceptional service.

The badge of the order is a gold or silver Maltese cross. An 8-pointed star is superimposed on the obverse, which is blue, and the 1910-pattern South African coat of arms is displayed on the reverse. The badges of the SSA and SSAS classes, in both divisions, have protea flowers between the arms of the cross.

Each class has its own distinctive ribbon, the first three classes being worn around the neck, and the others on the chest. In the military division, the SSA ribbon is plain blue, and the SSAS ribbon has a white line down the centre. In the non-military division, the ribbons are blue with different combinations of gold and silver stripes: gold edges for the SSA; silver edges for the SSAS; silver edges and a gold centre stripe for the Commander; silver edges and a gold centre stripe between two silver lines for the Officer; and silver edges and three centre stripes for the Member.

Eight-pointed breast stars, displaying the obverse of the badge, are worn by the SSA and SSAS recipients.

The post-nominal letters CSSA, OSSA, and MSSA were retrospectively authorised for the non-military division in 2005.

The order has no direct equivalent among the current South African national orders.