Sumbandilasat

The defenceWeb site reports:

South Africa’s second satellite, SumbandilaSat, is no longer fulfilling its main purpose due to technical problems and is essentially beyond repair, its maker SunSpace says.

Rob Olivier, head of Business Development at SunSpace, told defenceWeb that although contact can still be made with the satellite, it cannot capture images and is thus “not fulfilling its main purpose”.

He said that chances of repairing the satellite are virtually zero and that SunSpace has moved on to other projects.

SumbandilaSat was damaged during a solar storm in the June last year. The power supply to SumbandilaSat’s onboard computer stopped working and the satellite stopped sending back images.

Read the full story here.

In addition to its primary imaging mission SumbandilaSat (SO-67) carries an amateur radio voice beacon, parrot repeater and VHF/UHF FM repeater.

Southern African Amateur Radio Satellite Association (SA AMSAT) http://www.amsatsa.org.za/

defenceWeb http://www.defenceweb.co.za/