On Saptember 15, 2009, South Africa will launch It's second SumbandilaSat satellite into space, on a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan.

SumbandilaSat will be South Africa's second satellite after the launch of SUNSAT 1, built by students and professors at the University of Stellenbosch in 1999.

SumbandilaSat is designed and built in South Africa.Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor will travel to Kazakhstan this week to meet with the launch.

The country's science and technology department said that the SumbandilaSat, a 80-kg satellite in low orbit that the Earth spins at a distance of 500 km. and also added that it will collect data for use in the management of natural disasters like fires, floods ad oil spills in southern Africa.

It will also be able to measure temperatures at sea and land, clouds, rain, wind, sea levels, ice cover, vegetation and gases.