First South African satellite has gone quiet

It appears that South Africa's one and only satellite - the Earth observation spacecraft Sumbandila - was damaged by a blast of solar radiation and is now tumbling out of control.

Sumbandila, built by Stellenbosch-based company Sun Space & Information Systems and operated by South African National Space Agency (Sansa) on behalf of the Department of Science and Technology, was built using modified commercial-off-the-shelf components, which greatly cut costs yet provide high levels of reliability, costing only R11-million.

Unfortunately, Sumbandila has been out of contact with its Mission Control and has not downloaded any images since July, say Sansa CEO Dr Sandile Malinga, who added that they have not given up on the rogue satellite. But in any case, the Sumbandila programme has been a success, "[It] is a prototype satellite, it has been in space for two years. It has collected over 1100 usable images, cloud free images." These have included images of flooded areas of Namibia and earthquake and tsunami devastated areas of Japan. "We have achieved a lot. We've learnt a lot," he said, "we've [also] used it to train people."

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