SunSpace was established in 2000 as a spin-off from Stellenbosch University following the successful launch of SUNSAT by NASA with a Delta-II launch vehicle. During the past decade SunSpace has developed and delivered numerous satellite components, subsystems and two flight model satellite, now operational in space. This blog documents the mission of Sumbandila (funded by the DST), launched on a Soyuz-2.1b on 17 September 2009. SunSpace places a high premium on a strong partnership with the South African Government for supplying the ongoing satellite needs of our government.

08 November 2009

SA-AMSAT payload activation over the USA

The SA-AMSAT payload was again activated over several areas around the globe, with keen participation from many hams.  The two passes over the USA were particularly crowded.

Shown below is the satellite footprint over the USA for the 14:18 UTC pass (left) and 15:52 pass (right).









From what I could decypher from the recordings, the following callsigns were heard (callsigns from the 14:18 pass are shown in yellow and those from the 15:52 pass in red):







You can listen to a recording of the first pass activity here and of the second pass here (thank you Johan Papay, K8YSE EN91, for making the recordings available).

Current Keplerian Elements

Last Update: 1 Febr 2010
Element set: 404

Sumbandila
1 35870U 09049F   10032.48635300  .00000433  00000-0  21444-4 0  4040
2 35870 097.3525 084.8560 0011505 166.1189 300.7196 15.22856092 20818