There once was a little satellite that had a long way to go. She tried and tried to launch, but failed every time, no matter how hard she tried. She pulled and she pulled. She puffed and she puffed - but no, she could not launch.
Our little satellite, Sumbandila, has been trying for close to three years to launch. The initial excitement of being completed back in 2006 has worn off, and I'm sure she is beginning to get a little tired of sitting around. While her creator, the Department of Science and Technology, tries to reassure her that she will launch into her destiny, it just can't find any way of getting her off the ground. This little satellite knows it cannot launch itself - but after waiting so long it has to try. “I think I can - I think I can - I think I can,” she says to herself.
Now, she is sitting somewhere in the big, icy land of Russia, waiting for her final push into orbit. Carefully delivered there in June, by the department, in anticipation for her big moment, she looks around to see if she can't get help somewhere else. She remembers whispers in 2008 that she could have been sent to China or India if the Russians couldn't help. But, she remains stuck with the unhelpful Russians. “I think I can - I think I can - I think I can,” she says.
It seems the department is happy to rely on notoriously temperamental and unreliable Roskosmos to launch her.
Stuck in the mud
While her launch has been postponed several times due to administrative clashes, it looks like the department will not take her anywhere else. Weighing only 81kg and having waited patiently for three years, she hopes - along with the rest of us - that her day has finally come.
Despite a R26 million investment and the value that she will bring, she will not be launched yet. Earth observation imagery to facilitate the continent's response to drought, flooding, outbreaks of fire, water scarcity, the spread of infectious diseases, the destruction of ecosystems, water degradation and air pollution for SA and the region, will have to wait.
She sits, waiting patiently. No one is quite sure when her time will come. The Russians cancel, postpone and reschedule. The department waits, puzzled and frustrated, but with no decisive action, for her launch to happen.
Staying put
The department even calls me to ask about delays in the schedule. How did I know its little one wouldn't be launched when it didn't know, the department asks. This would have marked the end of the relationship, if Sumbandila was my little one, but the department marches on with the Russians.
Earth observation imagery to facilitate the continent's response to drought, flooding, outbreaks of fire, water scarcity, the spread of infectious diseases, the destruction of ecosystems, water degradation and air pollution for SA and the region, will have to wait.
Audra Mahlong, ITWeb journalist
“We have always been looking at other partners,” said the department. I still haven't figured out why it couldn't have turned to China or India - maybe because of an innate distrust of countries where the average age of the labour force is eight.
New science and technology minister Naledi Pandor then boldly steps in. The launch of the little one is key to the country's science and technology hopes, and she says it will be launched. Satellites are now at the core of worldwide communications, global positioning systems and data gathering on topics as vital as climate change and global warming. The little one must have sat in her box and thought to herself, “now I definitely will”.
“Next month,” she said, “in July.” But Pandor learnt that even she has limited control over the great Russian schedule. And the launch is yet to be. And is unlikely to be anytime soon. The fate of the destiny of the little one lies with the Russians. Everyone else has no idea when their little one will reach its heights.
“I think I can - I think I can - I think I can,” she gasps one last time.
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