Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
This is a landmark day for us. Today we receive the first images generated by our very own satellite, SumbandilaSat, a wonderfully appropriate Tshivenda name meaning ‘lead the way’.
It is leading the way.
In 1998 a South African group built the satellite Sunsat, with the assistance of National Aeronautical Space Agency (NASA) and this was launched into orbit, by NASA in February 1999. It was a small satellite, weighing in at some 64 kg, and the payload was a small, multispectral imager with a 15 m resolution operating from an altitude of 600 km.
Now, almost 11 years later, we have followed this up with a second South African micro-satellite and the first to be sponsored by government. SumbandilaSat is an operational technology demonstrator with a mass of 81 kilograms and carries a 6.25m ground sampling distance multi-spectral imager designed to operate at an altitude of 500 km. We contracted our comrades in Russia to handle the launch.
We will fulfil several objectives with the SumbandilaSat project:
* We will strengthen the technological capabilities and space resources that exist in South Africa
* We will expand capacity development and training in satellite engineering
* We will provide important earth-observation satellite data for a wide range of applications.
These are the abstracts, but in real terms our new satellite provides our country with a number of cost and competitive advantages in sustainable development; security; in planning and other fields. SumbandilaSat imagery can be used for a variety of applications which have direct benefits for society, including:
* Disaster management, by the monitoring of floods and fires
* Food security, by way of the estimation of crop yields
* Health, through the prediction of epidemics and outbreaks
* Infrastructure
* Land cover and land use
* Safety and security
* Water resource management
* Energy.
This satellite of ours, SumbandilSat, which is even as we speak, watching over us, high above our heads, had its origins back in 2005.
In October that year the Department of Science and Technology (DST) announced a three-year integrated capacity-building and satellite development programme.
Stellenbosch University was tasked with the development of a low earth orbiting satellite and academic training programme and they, in turn, subsequently subcontracted the private enterprise SunSpace to build the satellite.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) satellite applications centre was contracted for operations, telemetry, tracking and command, as well as data capturing.
The following year, 2006, a competition for high school students was held to find a name for this pioneering satellite of ours. The judging panel received entries in practically all of our official languages, but ultimately decided that the Tshivenda name "Sumbandila", which means "lead the way", was the most apt. This was announced in 2007.
The SumbandilaSat uses a standardised modular microsatellite bus. An unusual feature is that, when the satellite is in the station’s field of view, a ground station operator can use the onboard TV cameras to pick out objects to photograph and then correct the satellite’s attitude accordingly with a simple joystick control input. This is what makes it possible to use the satellite to collect imaging data during a national emergency, for instance during floods, as well as to program pre-selected ground targets to image.
For the first few months after launch, SunSpace utilised the ground station at the engineering department of the University of Stellenbosch and the Satellite Application Centre (SAC) ground station to commission and control the satellite.
Eventually the SAC will take over the normal operations, telemetry, tracking, control and image data capturing. The CSIR will be responsible for its mission control receiving image data from the satellite and monitoring and controlling it to perform its various functions in orbit.
SumbandilaSat is described as a satellite technology demonstrator, so we have to ask ourselves, what technology is it demonstrating?
And as it turns out, the answer to that is quite interesting.
Our satellite is carrying a number of secondary experimental payloads for the scientific community.
The department of physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal has embarked on a study of very low frequency waves. The objective of the experiment is to study the transmission of VLF waves through the ionosphere, the propagation between hemispheres, and the wave content of the magnetosphere.
Stellenbosch University is carrying out two experiments:
One is concerned with the mitigation and measurement of space radiation effects on electronic systems. Part of the experiment will measure the response of reprogrammable logic to space radiation. The data collected will assist the development of improved radiation-tolerant space systems by validating experimental results obtained from terrestrial radiation results and will also aid in developing cost effective terrestrial radiation testing processes.
The second is the software-defined radio experiment, whereby an additional SunSpace single-board computer identical to the satellite's primary on-board computer is used as a digital signal processing platform for a reconfigurable communications system. With the addition of a daughterboard, signal conversion and translation to and from radio frequencies is achieved. Radio functionality can be reprogrammed as needed, enabling remote management and upgrading of the communications system.
Mark Gordon until recently a student in the department of megatronics at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth has devised an experiment that will test the behaviour of a string in space.
Mark responded to an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper inviting students and researchers to apply to have their experiment included as a payload. The experiment is on string vibration, and the information will be useful in the study of overhead line behaviour and how to shorten spans. This is the first micro gravity experiment on a South African satellite.
The Southern Africa South Africa Amateur Radio Satellite Association (SA AMSAT) working with Stellenbosch University, developed a control system that commands the transceiver and allows it to function as an FM repeater for use by licensed radio amateurs.
The system also includes a parrot repeater, a device that will record 20 seconds of audio and plays it back on the downlink frequency.
The parrot is an ideal system to take space into the classroom and so create greater interest in space science at school level. In fact it is already doing so, through a popular feature the audio beacon. This carries a 15 second message which can be altered by uploading a new message.
Composing such a message was the aim of a countrywide competition won by Kimberley Technical High School Student, Anton Coetzee. His message: “This is zsosum in space. I am the voice of the South African youth. We are knocking on the door of opportunity, marking our place in the orbit of space research and communication. Hear us! Listen to us!”
Listen to that. How can we ignore such a plea?
And that brings us face to face with one of our biggest challenges: We believe that we can build a successful space programme.
But we do not believe that we can build it without the appropriate expertise and skills.
Without these skills all the existing and envisaged infrastructure and programmes will be wasted effort.
In order to address our human capital development requirements we must consider an integrated approach, where the focus extends from school level up to professional development training. The core focus will be at the undergraduate and postgraduate training level with downstream activities focusing on schools and the general public and upstream activities focusing on professional development of technical experts.
For space science and technology there are two equally important career streams: space science applications and space systems engineering.
These are essentially the twin hubs around which space science revolves, and they are connected by spokes in the form of the Centres of Competence, the Research Chairs, Universities, Science Councils and the Private sector, all networked together according to their areas of specialised expertise.
Together, or separately, these career hubs represent a multitude of exhilarating and fulfilling careers, and one of our biggest tasks is to convey this to able and competent learners.
To fulfil this need for human resources it is necessary to have awareness programmes to educate society to appreciate the importance and value of space science and technology and its socio-economic impact.
The critical juncture in the schooling system is grade 9 where students are expected to make a decision with respect to the courses they will follow in their future careers.
That is why we are starting to engage students well before the grade 9 level and if they decide to continue in a career in space science and technology we will then find a mechanism to further support them up to Grade 12.
To this end, in collaboration with the Department of Education, we will set up a number of space schools and camps. Most importantly, for this programme to be successful there is a pressing need to train teachers, and to prepare them for effective engagement in this discipline.
Last, but not the least of SumbandilSat’s secondary payloads is an interesting communications system commissioned by the Department of Communications (DOC) which will bring data communications to the remotest parts of South Africa. The DOC worked with Stellenbosch University to develop a data store and forward system that is able to serve as a test bed for a future satellite network that can, amongst others things:
* Assist rural clinics with patient records
* Provide water affairs with reliable dam capacity records and associated weather conditions
* Provide email facilities at remote schools and
* Assist other government departments to communicate with outlying posts.
The mission is essentially a low-bandwidth data communications system that is accessible from areas in South Africa where there is no communication connectivity of any sort. The system is able to exchange short messages up to eight kbytes and can handle up to 20 ground station nodes with one channel.
These then are some of the capacities of our new satellite.
Today, our country can finally look into the gigantic satellite mirror that is SumbandilaSat and see what it looks like after 16 years of democracy.
Today, we are here to celebrate the first images of SumbandilaSAT five months after its launch.
And, appropriately, we are also gathered to launch space science and technology’s quarterly newsletter.
All of this is evidence that can lead to only one conclusion. Our nation is in space, and we intend to use our minds and our resources to take a leadership position in space.
As we can see from these wonderful images, SumbandilaSat has led the way, but it’s only a beginning.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
22 February 2010
Source: Department of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za/)
