Tag Archives: Satellite

How do orbits work?

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Welcome to another Science Explainy Bit episode of the Urban Astronomer Podcast. Today we try to figure out just what an “orbit” actually is. Is it really as simple as they said in primary school? How does gravity, which normally pulls things down, work to keep the Moon in space? Download this episode now, to find the answer, and also learn a little about my upcoming appearance at ScopeX! What is an Orbit? () This turns out to be quite … Continue reading →

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Podcast #24: Willie Koortz at ScopeX 2017

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Welcome to Episode 24 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast, and a Happy New Year to each and every one of you.  This episode features the keynote lecture from ScopeX 2017, delivered by Willie Koortz.  Willie is an electronic technician working for the South African Astronomical Observatory, and is one of South African astronomy’s more interesting characters. ScopeX Lecture In his talk, he discusses South Africa’s role in the early days of the Space Age, looking at professional-amateur collaborative projects like … Continue reading →

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Podcast #23: Phila Sibandze at ScopeX 2017

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Welcome to episode 23 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast! This week we feature the third in our series of public lectures given at ScopeX earlier this year, which was presented by Phila Sibandze of the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). Phila Sibandze Phila works for SANSA as an earth observation scientist, and his talk was titled “A journey through the life of a satellite”.  In it he walked us through the process of designing, building, launching and operating a satellite, … Continue reading →

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Podcast #21: Lee Annamalai at ScopeX 2017

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Welcome to episode 21 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast! This week we feature the second in our series of ScopeX lectures, and plug an exciting new citizen science project.  Next week we’ll be bringing you the third lecture in the series, although we might sneak in a special guest episode before then! Lee Annamalai Lee spoke in his capacity at the CSIR (Center for Scientific and Industrial Research), where he manages their Earth Observation ICT systems group. He spoke about … Continue reading →

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The end of Sumbandilasat

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As South Africans, many of us don’t even know that we have a space program, so we’re especially proud of our locally built satellites.  The most recent was Sumbandilasat, an Earth Observation micro-satellite operated jointly by the CSIR, the University of Stellenbosch and SunSat (A local company which designs and builds satellites).Sumbandilasat was launched in September 2009, on a Soyuz-2 launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and was built to a budget using off-the-shelf components wherever possible.  Although this approach … Continue reading →