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The SUNSAT schools program was initiated to allow students to build a project to go on SUNSAT. The SUNSAT team sent invitations to 1500 schools, and only 4 responded. As a result of the lacklustre response, the SUNSAT team started the SUNSTEP project. |
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Rhenish Girls High School in Stellenbosch submitted an experiment that monitors radiation damage to CMOS electronics equipment. Its purpose is to investigate the effect of radiation on CMOS logic gates with which various on board circuits have been built. Two identical CMOS integrated circuits are compared with each other, one of which will be placed between the solar panel and the body of the satellite, while the other remains shielded by the structure of the tray.
A satellite sound and temperature experiment was submitted by the George Campbell Technical High School in Durban. It consists of a sensitive microphone, which will pick up vibrations in the structure of the satellite, and a temperature sensor, which will measure the temperature on the inside of the tray. The experiment will assist the SUNSAT ground team in monitoring the deployment of the gradient boom, the thermal expansion noises caused by temperature fluctuations, and the sound of the rotation of the reaction wheels.
Although not part of the schools project, to involve students from the Technikon, Pentech students were invited to build an experiment. The University of Kebangsaan also submitted an experiment.
A dust particle impact detection experiment was submitted by the Cape Town Peninsula Technikon. Its purpose is to detect and measure the frequency of small meteorite impacts on the satellite by using sensors mounted on the satellite's exposed top plate.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia submitted materials exposure experiment to measure the temperature and conductivity in space of a YBCO high temperature superconductor and a glassy carbon sample developed by its Physics department
