Hi Simon,

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.

73 Trevor M5AKA

--- On Tue, 11/8/09, Simon (HB9DRV) simon@hb9drv.ch wrote:

From: Simon (HB9DRV) simon@hb9drv.ch Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] SumbandilaSat Sept 15 To: "Trevor ." m5aka@yahoo.co.uk, amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Tuesday, 11 August, 2009, 6:14 PM From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumbandilaSat

Design lifetime of 3 years at an orbit altitude of 500km :(

Simon Brown, HB9DRV www.ham-radio-deluxe.com

----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor ." m5aka@yahoo.co.uk

...

SumbandilaSat launch scheduled for Sept 15 http://www.southgatearc.org/news/august2009/sumbandilasat_launch_date.htm