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.