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SUNSAT
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Background on the SUNSAT Experiment
 On February 23rd 1999, the first South African satellite
was launched aboard a Delta II Launch Vehicle.
SUNSAT was a micro-satellite
built by post-graduate engineering students in the Electronic Systems Laboratory, from
the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch.
It carried a Turborogue GPS receiver for POD and occultations. Despite the success of the
mission as a whole and constant efforts to obtain radio-occultations, continuous tracking of
GPS satellites was never possible for times long enough to obtain reliable orbit solutions
needed for occultation retrievals.
This post-graduate student satellite research program finished its
operational life in February 1st, 2001 and succeeded however in
achieving many other
objectives.
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