Hello all Intended orbit is around 500km to meet the imaging payload requirements. At this altitude and with the limited propulsion on board, 3 years is a good estimate of the satellite lifetime due to re-entry. No reason why the electronics should not last much longer than this. The Soyuz Fregat will return to a lower altitude to drop Sumbandila off after the main payload has been released. 73 Pieter
>Gunter's Space Page lists the primary payload, Meteor-M 1, as going into an >830 km orbit. >I'm guessing SumbandilaSat will end up in a similar orbit as I'm not aware >that the >launcher in question is capable of doing multi-drop of the payloads >into different orbits. >SumbandilaSat was originally scheduled to be launched from a submarine >platform, this >may be the source of the 500 km figure quoted, but the launch >vehicle changed. >Unfortunately I've no definative information on SumbandilaSat's intended >orbit. >Quoted design lifetimes are usually meaningless. For experimental systems it >just means >the time required to complete the primary experiment. For many >satellites it's quoted as 3 >or 6 months, but systems may continue to operate >for many years after the primary >objective has been completed. -- This message is subject to the CSIR's copyright terms and conditions, e-mail legal notice, and implemented Open Document Format (ODF) standard. The full disclaimer details can be found at http://www.csir.co.za/disclaimer.html. This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks Transtec Computers for their support. _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
