The Stellenbosch UNiversity SATellite is the first miniaturized satellite designed and manufactured in South Africa. It was launched aboard a Delta II rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on 23 February 1999. Sunsat was built by post-graduate engineering students at the University of Stellenbosch. Its AMSAT designation was SO-35 (Sunsat Oscar 35).
Specifications
- Size: 45 x 45 x 60 cm
- Mass: 64 kg
- Launcher: Delta II rocket, Mission P-91
- Program size: US $5M (Approximate)
- Lifetime: 4–5 years (NiCad Battery pack life)
- Main payloads:
- Amateur radio communications
- Data interchange
- Stereo multispectral imager
- Attitude control: Gravity gradient and magnetorquers, reaction wheels when imaging
- Accuracy: 3 mrad pitch/roll, 6 mrad yaw
- 2 Micro Particle Impact Detectors were included as part of experiments conducted in orbit
- A team (Zaahied Cassim and Rashid Mohamed) from Peninsula Technikon designed and built circuits for both their own piezo film technology and NASA supplied capacitive sensors.
- SSC 25636[1]
Pushboom imager
- Ground pixel size: 15 m x 15 m
- Image width: 51.8 km
References
- ^ Peat, Chris (5 December 2013). "SUNSAT - Orbit". Heavens Above. Retrieved 6 December 2013.
- http://research.ee.sun.ac.za/sunsat/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20050414090039/http://esl.ee.sun.ac.za/projects/sunsat/news/20010201.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20051224163310/http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/so35.html