- SUNSAT
The Stellenbosch UNiversity SATellite is the first
miniaturized satellite designed and manufactured in Africa. It was launched aboard aDelta II rocket from theVandenberg Air Force Base on23 February ,1999 . Sunsat was built by post-graduate engineering students at theUniversity of Stellenbosch .pecifications
* Size: 45 x 45 x 60 cm
* Mass: 64 k
* 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
* Altitude control: Gravity gradient and magnetorque, 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 Pentech Designed and Built circuits for both its own and NASA supplied sensorsPushboom imager
* Ground pixel size: 15 m x 15 m
* Image width: 51.8 kmExternal links
* http://research.ee.sun.ac.za/sunsat/
* http://www.sarl.org.za/public/local/sunsat.asp* http://esl.ee.sun.ac.za/projects/sunsat/news/20010201.html
* http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/so35.html
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