Sumbandilasat blasts off next month

By Leon Engelbrecht for Department of Science and Technology
Johannesburg, 28 May 2007

Sumbandilasat, SA`s second satellite, is set for launch between 18 and 20 June, says Department of Science and Technology (DST) spokesperson Kristin Klose.

The 80kg micro-satellite will shortly be flown to Murmansk, in northern Russia, to be mated to a former naval nuclear missile. This will then be loaded aboard an atomic-powered submarine for launch in the Barents Sea, near the North Pole.

The satellite was originally set to launch in December, the dead of the northern winter. This was postponed to Easter and was then delayed into the northern high polar summer, believed to be the safest time to launch.

SunSpace and Information Systems built Sumbandilasat, a combination of the Venda for "lead the way", and "sat", under contract from the University of Stellenbosch for the DST.

SunSpace export manager Ron Olivier previously said Sumbandilasat cost R11 million to build, compared to the R8 million spent on its predecessor, Sunsat (Stellenbosch University Satellite), but is thrice as good.

"[The satellite`s earth observation camera] has three times better ground resolution and, instead of a gravity gradient boom, which is not very stable, we can now, with three-axis stabilisation, keep it stable enough to achieve the 6.25m ground sampling distance objectives we set ourselves."

Olivier explains this means one pixel is equivalent to 6.25sq metres. Images taken by Sumbandilasat will be downloaded by CSIR engineers at its Satellite Application Centre, at Hartebeeshoek, near Pretoria, as the satellite crosses over.

The satellite will also carry a number of experiments and an amateur radio payload. The CSIR will be responsible for the satellite`s day-to-day operations, as well as telemetry, tracking, control and data capturing.

Olivier says Sumbandilasat was built under a R26 million contract, which includes launch and shipping costs, as well as funding used by Stellenbosch University to present post-graduate and PhD courses on satellite development.

Sunsat, or ZA-001, also built by SunSpace, was launched in February 1999 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, on a Delta II rocket. It had a 23-month operating life and ceased functioning in 2001. It remains in orbit.

Once launched, SunSpace will be responsible for commissioning Sumbandilasat and for providing technical support during its planned three- to four-year lifespan.

"We expect her to last five years-plus, however," Olivier said earlier this year. Commissioning entails remotely switching the satellite on and "detumbling" it, as it will be "spinning at one heck of a rate", he explained.

The satellite last year successfully completed a series of performance tests at the Institute for Satellite and Software Applications, at Grabouw, near Cape Town.

The facility, now in the hands of the Department of Communications, was in the 1980s known as Houwteq, part of apartheid SA`s space programme, which was central to a broader scheme to build a ballistic missile, tipped with a nuclear weapon.

"A lot of South African technology is riding on this satellite. We have tested it and every indication is that once it is up there, it will work," Olivier notes.