Ewan's Corner

Posts Tagged ‘southafrica’

South Africa’s second satellite – Sumbandila (“lead the way” in Tshivenda) – has produced its first official images from orbit (see left).

Launched on 17th September 2009 from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket, Sumbandila is a small 81kg low orbit (500 km) solar-powered satellite with a Butane propulsion system successfully fired in January. It carries a 6 spectral band imager (6,25 m × 6,25 m resolution) for ground photography and video (agriculture, mapping of infrastructure and land use, population measurement and the monitoring of dam levels etc), as well as an amateur radio transponder (SA-AMSAT) among other experiments.

See the Sumbandila mission blog for details, as well as the Wikipedia article – there is also a Facebook group.

A video taken of Earth from orbit (13th October 2009, moving over Namibia).

From Ionian Enchantment – the latest version of the African science and skepticism blog-roll, or a list of “those dedicated to science and reason on the African continent”. I am proud to be included. Definitely something thought-provoking for everyone – and quite a few reasons to get vocal and involved, no matter what your viewpoint is on science, pseudo-science, skepticism, religion, homeopathy, maths, vaccines, general woo-woo etc.

The latest Carnival of Africans – the Phoenix Edition – is well worth a read.

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
• Amanuensis
• Ambient Normality
• ASSAf Blog
• Botswana Skeptic
• Bomoko and other nonsense words
• Communicating Science, the African Way **new**
• Defollyant’s AntiBlog
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan’s Corner
• Geekery
• Grumpy Old Man
• Hello Universe, This is Nessie
• Ionian Enchantment
• Limbic Nutrition
• Lenny Says
• McBrolloks **new**
  
• Nathan Bond’s TART Remarks
  
• Orion Spur
  
• Other Things Amanzi
• Pickled Bushman
• Psychohistorian
  
• Reason Check
• Retroid Raving
• Scorched
• Shadows Hide
  
• Stop Danie Krügel
• Subtle Shift in Emphasis
• Synapses
• Tauriq Moosa
  
• The Science Of Sport
• The Skeptic Black Sheep
• The Skeptic Detective
• Turn 2 Reason
• Word of the Blog

Kulula‘s paint work for their new Boeing 737-86N (January 2010).

Another image – a great closeup of the detail on the left tail section.

Not your average boring airline.

All images matching a search for Kulula on jetphotos.net.

Posted from Ewan’s posterous

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Listen on posterous

Posted via email from Ewan’s posterous

Joining in the meme inspired by EXMI and tracked by Spacebook - 10 reasons I love being South African, and I love this country:

1. Our high interest rate – look what a too low rate did to the US world markets
2. Our constitution. We’re not the most tolerant people at times, but we seem to be more open-minded and tolerant than most
3. We are willing to stand up for what is right technically
4. Durban weather (an average of 320 days of sunshine a year *), our beaches and the Drakensberg
5. Summer in Capetown (February in particular)
6. We never lose our sense of humour :-)
7. There are always positive people out there, willing to share their viewpoints to try and dispel some of the unnecessary doom and gloom
8. Braai time – 24th September (next Wednesday) is braaiday, Like we need an excuse.
9. We have an industrious web2.0 group, and we have a habit of rapidly adopting new technology appropriately, despite our 3rd world limitations often getting in the way.
10. If there ever is a global nuclear war, we’re in an excellent global position to survive – or at least be the last to go

References: SA Rocks