Nigeria’s Historic Foray Into Space
A nation’s chequered attempts at exploring space Nigeria recently joined the prestigious league of nations with ample grip on the vast resources provided by space with its recent launch of two additional satellites into orbit on the 17th of August, 2011 at an estimated cost of N17.42 billion. The two satellites, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, have […]
A nation’s chequered attempts at exploring space
Nigeria recently joined the prestigious league of nations with ample grip on the vast resources provided by space with its recent launch of two additional satellites into orbit on the 17th of August, 2011 at an estimated cost of N17.42 billion. The two satellites, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, have already started functioning in earnest with the expectation that they would further boost the nation’s epileptic technological advancement. But the road to this laudable stage has been fraught with no mean measure of inherent bureaucratic bottlenecks and institutional challenges.
Available records reveal that the journey has been an arduous one. The dual satellites which are medium resolution multi-spectral low orbiting sun synchronous satellites are part of the world-wide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System. Images of the country obtained from the satellites are beamed back to the control station for use by the governmental agencies. They will be used for demography such as mapping and planning of population surveys, census enumeration areas, as well as mapping, planning and monitoring of rural and urban growth and to also give advance warnings of natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and storms. They can equally be used to avoid or manage any occurrence of man-made disasters like oil pollution, desertification, erosion, forest fire, and deforestation. In agriculture, they will be used for mapping, land use planning, management of sustainable grazing, forest logging, planning afforestation programmes, crop inventory and yield forecast.
Apart from the duo, another satellite, a communications satellite called Nigeria Communications Satellite NIGCOMSAT, was also launched in May 2007 in China, but Nigeria lost the satellite in orbit due to a fault with the solar panel caused by a cut to the fuel supply link of the panel resulting in a solar flare. The initial backlash emanating from the loss had seen the Nigerian government in a spirited attempt at calming frayed nerves of Nigerians who had called on the government to shelve other plans to launch satellites into orbit. But the antagonism from the nation had diminished when the Chinese authorities promised to replace the lost satellite at no cost to Nigeria. The replaced satellite tagged NIGCOMSAT R is said to be 75 per cent completed and expected to be launched at the end of the year.
The NigComSat1 project embarked upon during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was meant to serve as a follow up to the nation’s first satellite in orbit, Nigeria Satellite NigerSat1. The Nigeria Satellite 1, which was facilitated by NARSDA, paved the way for NigComSat1 valued at about $250 million. Online records reveal that the contract, which was signed in December 2004 between NARSDA and the Great Wall Industry Corporation of China, led to the Chinese company designing, developing, manufacturing and launching the satellite into orbit in May, 2007.
China was awarded the deal after it outbidded 21 international rivals, including Britain and the United States to secure the multi-million dollar deal. The contract package included the cost of the satellite, construction, insurance, value added tax (VAT) as well as the price for building one ground control station in Abuja and a backup control station in Kashi, China.
The satellite has four gateways said to be located in South Africa, China, Italy and Northern Nigeria. The satellite is supposed to have a lifespan of 15 years and is to be monitored and tracked by a ground station built in Abuja while the Chinese firm, Great Wall Industry Corporation, through its ground station in Kashgar, in North-west China is to monitor it.
The two new additions will boost Nigeria’s space technology, say space experts
Drew Henshaw, a Fulbright scholar in a blog, says of the two newly launched satellites NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X: ‘At the top of the sky where space begins, two satellites are gliding into position oriented by the glow of the galaxy and the uplink command from Abuja. This is Nigeria’s space program…a team of rocket scientists in Africa’s most populous country are gliding into place Nigeria’s third and fourth satellites fired into orbit last week (August 17th). The two satellites include the first built by Africans but they are not for mapping the cosmos. They are for mapping Lagos, a megacity that seems as vast as the Milky Way. As many as 17 million people live in Lagos state alone, a crowded constellation of humanity that has hardly been mapped. Cameras perched on Nigeria’s two newest satellites will allow municipal leaders to chart the city they preside over says Steve Young, who is head of business development for the company that built one of the two satellites, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, SSTL. Lagos residents will directly benefit from their country’s space program, he says and governments presiding over Africa’s other megacities may soon follow.’
He adds, ‘but the new satellites will do more than photograph sub Saharan Africa’s largest city. They will take infrared readings of Nigeria’s farms. They will also offer farmers satellite data on where to apply fertilizer and keep data on how Nigeria’s deserts are spreading. When disaster strikes, aid agencies will rely on the photographs the satellites provide. Up till now when confronted by disasters, Nigeria has often relied on purchased photos from other satellites.’
Also, Umar Isah, Nigeria Communications Commissions, (NCC) lends his support verbally adding that the launch would boost Nigeria’s human capital development: Apart from that, the four satellites that Nigeria has built, Nigerian engineers can work on that. And if we are capable of launching this, we are able to build another one side by side with the Surrey engineers. So at least in terms of human development it’s something.’
Young of SSTL appears to share the same thoughts. ‘You are now beginning to train a corps of very experienced engineers, high technology technicians and people who benefit the wider economy. That also is a very good effect that Nigerians get in investing in high tech programs. They’ve got to develop their economy and that is one of the ways they do that by doing this…’
Satellites’ breathtaking capabilities
Dubem Chizea, NigeriaSat-2 project head and NASRDA director of International Cooperation, says that NigeriaSat-1 and NigeriaSat-2 are complementary in providing different types of data. ‘NigeriaSat-1 has proven very effective in disaster response and land use monitoring on a very large scale using its wide swath and medium resolution imager to see the big picture and NigeriaSat-X will provide continuity of this data. NigeriaSat-2 will provide detailed imagery of particular areas not visible with the medium resolution imager. For instance, precision agriculture has always been possible using imagery from NigeriaSat-1 but the small pixel size of NigeriaSat-2 imagery will enable an increase in efficiency by looking at much smaller areas in greater details allowing more accurate targeting of fertilizer.
NASRDA will be able to use the medium swathe imagers on board Nigeria Sat-X and NigeriaSat-2 to take big pictures which then allow them to decide where to focus the high resolution imager on board NigeriaSat-2 for maximum benefits… In NigeriaSat-1, we have a training model which we use to train our engineers. So when we were building the NigeriaSat-2, we signed a contract too for a training model but along the lines, we discovered if we pay a little more money, we might be able to have them extend the training capacity for our engineers materials to build their own training model to become a flight model that could be launched into orbit which will be a very big boost for our engineers.
So our engineers were able to build and launch NigeriaSat-X which was initially an experimental satellite. NigeriaSat-X is performing better than any other satellite built in that class. It took just four days to receive satellite image from NigeriaSat-X which is a great record.
He strikes a balance between the known types of satellites and the capabilities of the current project types. ‘NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X are carrying high resolution cameras up there in the space to provide us with space imaging of what is going on around us at a higher altitude and with a wider coverage.
There is a difference between these satellites and communication satellites. We try to tell people that any satellite that is launched has a reason for why it is being launched which is underscored by the work that the satellite is supposed to be doing. We have methodological satellite that is monitoring the cloud method, monitoring magnetic flow to know the area where cloud are going to flow, the way the wind goes. They are not designed to give you telephony services because they do not carry payloads for such services. Even the cameras on the kind of satellites we launch into space vary. We have the middle resolution, high resolution and very high resolution cameras. That is why some will have a resolution of 22 meters, 10 meters, 2.5 meters, one meter and even .2 meter…’
Luis Gomes, head of Earth Observation at SSTL, gives another in-depth look into the benefits of the recent launch. He says inter alia that, ‘as a training satellite, NigeriaSat-X’s major contributions to Nigeria has already happened: the training of a highly capable group of Nigerians to undertake future space missions in an independent and self sufficient manner. That was the main objective of the satellite. But since it has by design very interesting, capable and useful optical capabilities, the satellite can also be used for resource management and mapping of the Nigerian territory.
To list just some of its capabilities, the satellite can: provide 22m multispectral image data for mapping, urban planning, agricultural monitoring and data relief, provide data continuity and interface with Nigeria Sat-1, enhance national human resources to use space applications and to develop Nigeria’s capability in space. The satellite will be used by NASRDA alongside NigeriaSat-2 to provide a complementary service to it and will contribute imagery to the international charter: space and major disasters through membership of disaster monitoring constellation continuing Nigeria’s important contribution to this United Nation’s endeavour…The new generation of Nigerian scientists and engineers trained under the NigeriaSat-X project will continue to support Nigeria’s space programme ensuring its continued success and sustainability. In total 26 Nigerian engineers trained at SSTL’s facilities in the UK over an 18 month period throughout the design and test period and were responsible for the build, test and commissioning of NigeriaSat-X.’
Segun Oruame of iTedgenews.com who has done extensive research on the two space exports believes that particularly, NigeriaSat-X underscores the development of local engineering skills for the space industry. ‘Originally designed as a training model for Nigerian engineering team on the NigeriaSat-2 project, the training model was upgraded to become a full flight model chiefly built by Nigerian engineers. NigeriaSat-X has become the first satellite to be designed and built by Africans in what would potentially solidify Nigeria’s leadership in that industry segment. NASDRA contracted the construction of Nigeria Sat-2 to the UK based small satellite manufacturer Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, SSTL.
Nigeria Sat-X was constructed by Nigerian engineers under SSTL’s supervision. Construction building has been central to the implementation of the Nigeria Space Program. NigeriaSat-X was fitted as a training model-TM to form part of the know how technology training-KHTT on the NigeriaSat-2 project. The TM was used to give Nigerian engineers hands on experience in the requirements specification, project management, systems engineering, manufacture, test, assembly, integration and final systems testing of a spacecraft. Unlike the NigeriaSat-1 TM, NigeriaSat-X was built to flight specification and eventually launched along with NigeriaSat-2. About 26 Nigerian engineers and scientists were involved in the building of the satellite using the facilities of SSTL.’
He enumerates the key features of the satellites: ‘NigeriaSat-X key features include a 22m next generation imager with improved resolutions and optics over the same swath areas of DMC+, Max swath 600km @ 8 bits, high rate X-band downlink set to 20 MBps and 2 by 2 Gbyte data recorders. The NigeriaSat sensor is designed to provide imagery at 3 resolutions- 2.5m panchromatic, 5m multi spectral- RGB, NIR and 32m multi spectral.
The Nigeria Sat-X sensor will provide 22m multi spectral imagery. The volume of imagery expected from NigeriaSat-2 is about 250 images per day with long term storage for approximately 7.2 years of steady collection and processing for 100 images per day. The imagery volume from NigeriaSat-X is estimated to be handful of images per day sharing many of the same storage and processing capabilities from Nigeria-Sat-2 system. NigeriaSat-X weighs about 87kg while NigeriaSat-2 which is the bigger satellite weighs 270kg. The two satellites orbit round the earth from the North Pole to the South Pole. They are expected to be in space for seven years.’
A technical glance at the capabilities of NigeriaSat-2 and its twin, NigeriaSat-X
www.sstl.co.uk/nigeriasat-2-missions-objectives gives a comprehensive outlook on the features that stand the duo out. ‘Designed and assembled at SSTL in Guildford, the satellites will provide the NASRDA and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) with very high resolution imaging capability. The highly agile NigeriaSat-2 is based on the latest SSTL 300 platform and will deliver multiple viewing modes to a maximum 2.5m panchromatic-black and white ground sample distance, GSD and 5m multi spectral-colour-GSD across a 20km swath width. A second 32m GSD 300km swath width multi-spectral imager will provide data continuity with Nigeria’s previous SSTL built satellite, NigeriaSat-1 launched in 2003 and still operational.’
It concludes: ‘NigeriaSat-2’s very high resolution imagery gives the ability to pinpoint individual buildings, roads or fields of interest from space and will be used to provide data for urban planning, important to Nigeria’s rapidly expanding cities. NASRDA plans to use the satellite to map the entire country in details every four months as well as to enhance food security for Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country, through monthly crop monitoring…NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X will add new higher resolution imaging capability to the disaster monitoring constellation, a fleet of separately owned small satellites coordinated by DMC International Imaging Ltd, DMCii for daily global monitoring.
The SSTL 300 platform provides high agility with the capability to roll up to 45% off-center possessing extremely accurate geolocation performance using a combination of onboard GPS receivers, star trackers and compact MEMS gyros adapted from terrestrial automobile control systems. NigeriaSat-2’s innate agility enables a variety of viewing modes, including stereo imaging, artificial image widening and fast response with the ability to image any spot on the earth within 2 days. Built for a seven year operational lifetime, NigeriaSat-2’s very high resolution imagery will see it acquiring and downloading 20 times more data per day than its NigeriaSat-1 predecessor, providing large quantities of data for sale on the commercial.’
This is just the beginning, says NASDRA
An obviously enthusiastic Director General, NASRDA, Dr Seidu Omilo, who witnessed firsthand, the historic launch says there is more on the horizon for Nigeria as far as space technology is concerned: ‘We said it before and we will keep saying it that this country needs communication satellites to serve Nigeria.
We need to grow our private sector. We need to create jobs for our people. Can you imagine the amount of jobs that has been created from the introduction of GSM into the country? People sell cards across the nooks and crannies of this country so we need more of these people to come here. If the satellites are ours, prices can come down and the money is recycled within the country.
A substantial part of Nigeria is covered by cloud, particularly the Niger Delta. We need to assess the assets of oil and gas and the only way we can do it is to have a satellite that can penetrate the cloud. Not only that, we can also complain of illegal vessels entering our shores. It is because our technology to monitor such a thing is low.
If we have these satellites that can provide us information on a daily basis, we can locate such illegal vessels quickly. These are enormous possibilities that we require to make Nigeria move to the next level. In addition to that, we will need additional infrastructure. We’ll need an Assembly Testing and Integration Centre. It is critical to our development here…
(Valuable materials courtesy NASRDA Media office and iTedgenews.com is incorporated into the report)