Wikipedia
Interster (Afrikaans, Inter-star) (author Dr Johann Beukes 1949-2007) was a two-season science-fiction puppet television show made for children and shown in South Africa from the early 1980s. At the time of its production the show was variously compared to the series Thunderbirds, which was previously broadcast in South Africa in Afrikaans under the title Redding Internasionaal (International Rescue).
The main plot involved an undercover planetary defence agency operating from Cape Town under the guise of an interstellar shipping company. The show mirrored the real world political issues of international isolation facing Apartheid South Africa with the Earth being depicted as a galactic pariah of the "Interplanetary League" due to its cold war with the planet "Krokon". The villain in the series was depicted by Prince Karnati or his evil henchmen.
The spaceships used in the show were called Impalas after the South African Air Force aircraft, the locally assembled Italian Aermacchi MB-326. There was a pragmatic reason for calling the aircraft Impalas - the basis of the models were 1/48 scale plastic model kits of the AM326, so that they would be recognisable to South African youth.