The Director-General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Mohammed Seidu, has disclosed that Nigeria’s first satellite in orbit, NigeriaSat-1, is to be decommissioned soon.
Speaking during a conference and facility tour by the Nigerian Association of Science Journalists (NASJ) in Abuja on Thursday, Seidu added that the newly-launched earth observation satellite, NigeriaSat-2, is now set for commercial activities
Giving a rundown of the activities of NASRDA, he said that the testing of Sat-2, which was launched in August 2011, had been completed and commercial activities would take off soon.
Seidu however said due to security reasons, he could not disclose the specific time for decommissioning NigeriaSat-1 and the takeoff of commercial activities for the NigeriaSat-2.
He explained that Sat-1 had come to the end of its life and needed to be decommissioned so that the fuel left in it could be used for the decommissioning.
Allaying fears of the environmental impact, he said the satellite was small and most of it would have burnt out in orbit before it re-entered the earth.
According to Seidu, the satellite, which was launched in September 2003, was built to last for not more than five years, but “as we speak, that satellite has lasted for about eight years”.
“It’s a successful mission, it is a mission we are very proud of; we expect that it would take about 40 years to re-enter the earth,” he said.
“We have also finished the commissioning and testing of NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, final handing over would be done in a few days and we can start commercial operations.”
Seidu displayed a number of image taken by the satellite, stressing that the rumours that the satellite and its ground stations were not functional were completely untrue.
He said that the NigeriaSat-1, during its time, was used to get satellite mapping of Nigeria, mapping for the new railway project and used to produce the first satellite atlas in Africa.
Seidu lamented the agency’s current financial status as the most poorly funded among its contemporaries globally.
According to him, Nigeria would be saved over two billion dollars on high resolution imagery annually by NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X.
He said that NASRDA was currently proposing a policy to the National Assembly which would compel companies within Nigeria to first patronise Nigerian space technologies and only look outside when the technology was not in Nigeria.
“Our goal is to develop, build and launch satellites locally and by 2030, we would be a country of choice in the area of satellite technology,” the DG said.
“We also need to have backup satellites for earth observation and for communication.”
In response to the security challenges in the country, the agency is also to train military and paramilitary agencies on the use of satellite data for security and traffic control.
The training, according to Seidu, will commence shortly after all arrangements had been concluded by the relevant agencies.
