It has travelled nearly 700 million kilometres, taken 8,000 photographs and completed 4,400 successful telecomands while orbiting Earth.

The X-SAT, Singapore's first locally-built satellite, will mark three years in space this Sunday. and has survived several solar storms, hazardous radiation and more than 30 near-collisions with space debris.

The 105kg micro-satellite, developed by the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and DSO National Laboratories, was launched into space on April 20, 2011, on a three-year mission. The X-SAT will continue operating to experiment with "riskier" missions, such as testing a new control algorithm and navigation approach, said an NTU statement.

Director of NTU's Satellite Research Centre, Associate Professor Low Kay Soon, says the fully functioning X-SAT is a technological achievement which attests to the quality of NTU's engineering expertise.

NTU is the first university in Singapore to have a satellite programme for undergraduates.