It looks as if the launch of South Africa’s R26-million Sumbandila microsatellite (SumbandilaSat) will now take place on or around September 14 or September 15, and not on or around August 20, as previously hoped. The new likely launch dates have not, it seems, been officially communicated to the South African Department of Science and Technology yet.

The problem is that SumbandilaSat will only be the secondary payload on the Soyuz launch rocket – the primary payload will be a Russian Meteor M meteorological satellite.

Although both SumbandilaSat and the Soyuz satellite launch vehicle (not to be confused with the Soyuz manned space ship) are now at the launch centre – the Russian-leased and operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan – the Meteor M has been running late, for reasons unknown. Apparently, the Meteor M successfully passed its vibration tests some days ago, and should now be ready for shipping to the Cosmodrome.

However, it takes some 40 days to prepare a satellite for its flight, including its integration on to the topmost stage of its carrier rocket. Consequently, a launch on or around August 20 is no longer possible.

The South African microsatellite should have been launched in 2007 by the Russian Ministry of Defence on a Shtil rocket, from a Russian Navy missile submarine.

That deal fell through and Russia’s civilian space agency, Roscosmos, offered a land-based launch instead, at no extra cost, with SumbandilaSat as a secondary payload on a Soyuz.

Originally, it had been hoped that the launch would take place in March. Then it was delayed to May, and then to August, and now to September.

SumbandilaSat has been designed and built by specialist South African microsatellite company SunSpace & Information Systems (SunSpace), which is based in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. It is an 81-kg Earth observation microsatellite; sumbandila means “lead the way” in the Venda language. It is based around a new satellite platform developed by SunSpace. The microsatellite’s main payload is a 6,25-m multispectral imager – that is, the imager has a resolution of 6,25 m x 6,25 m. This imager was also designed, developed, and made by SunSpace.

SunSpace was spun off by the University of Stellenbosch to exploit the expertise developed in the design, assembly, and operation of the university’s own private-initiative satellite, SunSat, which, in 1999, became the first South African satellite to reach orbit.