SUNSAT

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

Pushboom imager

• Ground pixel size: 15 m x 15 m
• Image width: 51.8 km

References

• http://research.ee.sun.ac.za/sunsat/
• http://esl.ee.sun.ac.za/projects/sunsat/news/20010201.html
• http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/so35.html