Did you know that there's a Nigerian Satellite known as NigeriaSat-1 in orbit? It was launched from Russia on the 27th of September, 2003.
[img]http://www.nigeriafirst.org.nyud.net:8090/artman/uploads/nigspace.gif[/img]

The Satellite’s [I]ground control station[/I] is and is controlled by 15 Nigerian Engineers in Abuja (trained in Surrey, Inited Kingdom). The operation is supervised by NASDRA, the National Space Research and Development Agency.

The satellite is part of the world-wide [I]Disaster Monitoring Constellation System[/I]. Images of the country obtained from the satellite are beamed back to the control station for use by the Government.

It can be used for the following purposes:[list][li]To give advance warnings of natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and storms.[/li]
[li]To avoid or manage occurence of man-made disasters like oil pollution, desertification, erosion, forest fire, and deforestation,[/li]
[li]In agriculture, for mapping, land use planning, management of sustainable grazing, forest logging, planning afforestation programmes, crop inventory and yield forecast.[/li]
[li]Water resources development and management, including assessment of the quantity and quality of surface and underground water, rainfall prediction, as well as integrated water resources management on drought and other disaster forecast.[/li]
[li]Solid mineral exploration and exploitation, including general geological mapping and map update or revision, as well as differentiating host mineral areas in oil, gas and solid mineral exploration.[/li]
[li]Ecosystem: Evaluation and monitoring of vegetation and land use as well as the aquatic system.[/li]
[li]Local and regional planning for tourism and its potentials.[/li]
[li]Demographic uses such as mapping and planning of population surveys, census enumeration areas, as well as mapping, planning and monitoring of rural and urban growth.[/li]
[li]Mapping of state and international boundaries, planing and mapping of terrain traffic for defence and security purposes, as well as identification and neutralisation international criminals.[/li]
[li]It would be used in public health delivery to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria, while its remote sensing technology can be used to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis.[/li]
[li]To provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country via distant learning.[/li][/list]

According to the Office of Public Communications,
"Government hopes in future to employ people in space industry as an important economic engine of development.
It is also expected that the Nigerian space industry would serve neighboring African countries with data needs and thereby generate foreign exchange for the country."

Search for NigeriaSat-1: Google | Yahoo | MSN

woah, that definaltly comes as a surprise good to see though, hopefully Nigeria can help other african nations gain scientific knoweledge as well.

A National workshop was organized by the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in collaboration with Remote Sensing and Geoinformatic Association of Nigeria (RESGAN) and Geoinformation Society of Nigeria (GEOSON) from 15th to 17th June 2004 at the Le Meridian Hotel Abuja.

The purpose of the workshop was to sensitize stakeholders and users of satellite images on the utilization of NigeriaSat-1 data in various areas of socio- economic activities and sustainable national development, particularly in the areas of agriculture, solid mineral development, water resources development, health care delivery, defence and security, tourism, demographic survey, transportation and disaster management. Also, To provide a forum for experts to discuss and rationalize issues related to NigeriaSat-1 and other satellite data such as satellite data policy, pricing and commercialization in Nigeria.

The Federal Government proposed launching of a higher resolution Satellite (NigeriaSat-2) later this year, I don't know if they are still on it.

It's good that we have that satellite. I actually watched that live on TV on the day of launch, one cold winter night.

The issue is this: are Nigerian companies taking advantage of this facility? Are they not still taking jobs that should go to those people to other countries?

Emmanuel

The National Space Research Development Agency (NASRDA) has a web site www.nasrda.gov.ng with satellite photos of Abuja, Lagos and Ibadan taken by Nigeriasat1. The site seem down now but you can check it later.

I have almost concluded that we have not started reaping the dividends of this satellite. I know for a certainty that this is a Remote Sensing satellite. What that means is that Nigeria now has the means and technological capacity to undertake serious resource mapping of our country. I would have expected that by now, we should start seeing qualitative maps of different aspects of our country around instead of recycling the old topographical maps that were done just before the independence. Once we develop the capability to start producing and updating the exisiting maps then companies like Mobil, Cheveron and Shell will have no reason to give out mapping contracts to foreigners under the farcad of no local technology to achieve this. GSM companies are towing the line of these oil companies, MTN for instance sourced all the maps required to do planning from South Africa running into millions of RANDs, Glo has been paying Alcatel millions of Dollars to supply them maps of Nigeria made in Italy!!!!! V-Mobile also source all its mapping requirements from outside!!

I had the priviledge of seeing one of the first imageries processed at Abuja showing a part of Lagos and i was really glad to note that we can now produce such wonders at home. Agreed that the imageries had some cloud cover but the resolution at about 32meters was fantastic!! For instance i noticed that there had been a lot of dredging  near Badagry which portends grave danger to the ppl living there because the lagoon water could now find its way into fresh water near Badagry. This could cause flooding and topple the balanced ecosystem of that area. Am not sure if Lagos State govt has access to this type of info otherwise ppl living around the delta of Lagos near badagry are in for a lot of suprise if the lagoon pushes its way into the land, the bar beach disaster will pale into insignificance compared to what will befall our ppl at Badagry.

Are people actually this dense?You guys laud the launching of a satelite while people cannot eat?Babies crawl before the walk and i think someone forgot to tell Nigeria that.Waste of money.

Red:

Are people actually this dense?You guys laud the launching of a satelite while people cannot eat?Babies crawl before the walk and I think someone forgot to tell Nigeria that.Waste of money.

Its obvious that Red is myopic and short sighted. This satellite is a remote sensing sat. Remote Sensing means taking info abt an object from a distance, in this case the sky. This satellite can be used amongst others to monitor agriculture and raise alarm to problems that could jeopardise healthy yield. The Russians beneffited from such satellites when imageries told them sometime in late 80s that they will suffer from low yield of wheat because it was discovered that winter that year had caused frost to form a blanket over the wheat crop. This early warning caused the Russian govt to step up effort to avert that danger. If not for Remote Sensing and the satellite in space, Russian would have suffered more hunger than they did even during the Bolshevic revolution. 

So Red, The use of satellites could help monitor and boost agriculture and create more food for those hungry babies that u are so concerned about. I invite u to study how India is benefiting from the use of remote sensing imgaries to bring food to their almost 1billion population.

Tobi i quite agree with you the responsibility of our government extends beyond the provision of food, while it is important to ensure that the conditions of living are improved, it goes without saying that if extra measures cant be taken to ensure that unexpected disasters are properly contained; or better still, prevented; then there might possibly be no hungry people to feed.

Like a good friend of mine said Nigerians have an uncanny ability when it comes to deceiving themselves.

a good percentage of them no doubt; another good percentage also have the same ability to bury their heads in the sand about new developments; my opnion: if you are going to offer constructive criticism about an issue try to have all available facts so that your arguments are not based strictly on conjecture

This is not development,it is a waste of money.A huge fecking waste

hmm... Red if that was the f-word, u spelt it wrong then again there really is no need to swear however revolutionary your inclinations; Nigeria canno longer afford to be myopic we have to see into the big picture that the rest of the world is looking at and modelling themselves after otherwise, subsequently we may have greater problems than hunger

Feh! Forget about the friggin satellite!
I need 24 hours of power supply in my house.

I concur with legs; I'm only concerned about how effectively the data is being used.

In fact, there is going to be a NigeriaSat-2 which can resolve to higher accuracy and pick up objects on the ground. That one may be useful for police work.

I spelt the F word that way on purpose.Hey if you want a Satelite then fine have it.It ain't my money that is being wasted so what do i care.Have a good one

point taken!.... most likely to be ignored

@shockreaction if the new independent power plants one of which has already been commissioned, go on as planned then there should be a healthy boost of power into the national grid not only that; these power plants will be cut out gas-flaring (but i am sure when it was first proposed i few revolutionaries like our dear red dismissed the idea as balderdash)

its so easy to criticise a policy someone has thot up, but very hard to offer alternative solutions

What is wrong with satellite if the projects are well executed?

We can't practice science until we can feed ourselves? Thats a new one!

This is extremely cool. But hey, has the satallite seen that, most people pick food from the trash can?? I think the kind of satallite they need in Nigeria, is the one that can enable them see the parts of Nigeria that need help most.

The lauch of this satelite should have not have preceeded a policy or a frame-work that stipulates governmnet's intention for the usage of this satellites for mapping etc. The usage of this satellite will create awareness for the use of maps, GIS (Geographic Information System), Photogrammerty, Remote Sensing etc.

What we dont know is that the launch of this satelite has the potency to single handedly impact positively on ALL bussiness decisions. For instance, it had been noted that about 80% of all business decisions made are geographic in nature. The use of maps will help answer the WHERE question. Where are the customers that want our products, where are the competitors? where and where? America is the largest user of maps, other countries like Japan Canada and indeed so many countries in Europe are catching on. Without accurate maps, we cant conduct a credible census, election. NEPA cant effectively know how many people theyare serving, do we then expect them to plan very well? GSM and oil companies are spending a fortune getting foreigners to map Nigeria for them due to the dearth of such good maps in the country. With time, perhaps Nigeria will mature to such a level where we can have maps of bus routes, train routes etc to dessiminate information like its done in London coaches and trains.

Guys belive it or not, the launch of remote sensing satelite could create so many jobs, opportunites, technologies like Automatic Vehicle Tracking (AVL), Navigational systems, better planning in agriculture, etc

Very, very cool. However. I see it was lauched in russia. Where was it fabricated? Did Nigerian hands take any part in crafting it? Better yet, are nigerian students placing themselves in strategic positions at the major us companies that construct these vehicles? Work there for a couple of years, master a particular aspect of construction, then bring all that intellectual capital back home so africans can 'handle they biz'?

Just having the ability to *purchase* is nothing. Even processing an image is nothing too critical. Blind consumption is not very powerful, although the arguments posed by Tobi are reality based. But to really compete with these companies that specialize in geospatial tech and docs, you really got to be on your toes and not be above corp o rate esp i a nage to catch up and even the playing field.

@Tobi

Tobi:

I had the priviledge of seeing one of the first imageries processed at Abuja showing a part of Lagos and i was really glad to note that we can now produce such wonders at home.

My question is 'Are you really producing it?' Are you speaking of the image or the vehicle? Really, just getting an image is nothing. Constructing the vehicle is the real engineering wonder. Let's not even speak of putting it in orbit. But, it is something we must have the ability to fathom and began to work on soon. Don't get me wrong. You seem to be fairly astute, but i must say; The First thing Nigerians should be saying is "We can do this by ourselves", so why are we paying these people?

So the guys that argued against your position kinda had a point. Alot of mouths will be fed when Nigeria becomes the Aerospace Capital of the Africa. I hope you all see exactly where i'm coming from.

I understand this is a mile stone to have the infrastructure neccesary to communicate with a high altitude vehicle, but the real work has yet to be done.

If the vehicle was fabricated in the united snakes (i mean states), you do understand that those companies basically are the military industrial complex? Therefore, if they(us military, petro corps, etc, etc) need it to go offline at anytime, it will go offline. Something really to think about. The rumors over here are... discomforting.

Quoting Anton: Posted on: October 19, 2005, 01:04 AM

My question is 'Are you really producing it?'  Are you speaking of the image or the vehicle?  Really, just getting an image is nothing.  Constructing the vehicle is the real engineering wonder.  Let's not even speak of putting it in orbit.  But, it is something we must have the ability to fathom and began to work on soon.  Don't get me wrong.  You seem to be fairly astute, but i must say;  The First thing Nigerians should be saying is "We can do this by ourselves", so why are we paying these people?

I quite agree with Anton that Nigeria should develop the capacity and capabilty required to build such a satellite but i think the world is moving away from that 'do-everything-yourself' era.  Egypt and some 3rd world countries all have satellites in space and they did not build them themselves. While we are busy trying to learn the nitty-gritty of the satellite, the rest of the world will leave us behind.

I think the first thing we should do is to create awareness for the use of Remote Sensing technologies. When this had been achieved to a level, then we can start talking about building our own satellites from the scratch. The Americans do not produce ALL the components of the computer, they bring components from Asia and Europe. Take the GPS (Global Positioning System)  for instance, Europe had depended on the constallation of the 21 GPS satellites built and maintained by the American Department of Defence right from its inception in the 60s. It was just last year that Europe decided to have their own equivalent of the American  GPS called "Galilieo" just because the americans shut down the GPS during the Gulf war of the 90s

Going further, america still depend on the Russians sometimes to help launch some of their satellites because the Russians had perfected the art and science of lauching "heavy payloads " into space and this had been the situation for more than 20years now..why didn't the americans learn to launch ALL of their payloads everytime? Well because launching the satellite has nothing to do with reaping the benefits for building the satellites in the first place.

So Anton, i will suggest that we take it one step at a time...lets use the products of the satellites first, then we can graduate to building our satellites.

I hear you, Tobi

From my analysis, it is foolish to wait for the 'creation of awareness'. I hate to use such strong language, but how long would such a thing take? Better yet, who is it that needs awareness? Furthermore, what is up with this 'trying to learn the nitty-gritty of the satellite'? What is this 'trying'? You don't think Nigerians are up to the task? Do you see the African People exploring space independent of these other people? Also, what is so 'nitty gritty' about the process? It is exactly that, a process. I think the problem is we got so many problems concerning with food water and shelter that we have an inability to focus on the strategic future of our people. If we develope industries like this on the continent, it'll go a long way towards improving and empowering the African people. To be honest that is a goal of mine.


However, i can't find any evidence that suggests we have the luxery of time on our side. I agree with you, but what i'm saying is don't get complacent with purchasing technology that can be fabricated, at the lowest level, in-house, and at the highest level, in tangent with other African nations by way of strategic technological and industrial partnerships. Yes, use the technology to it's fullest, but at the same time push to develope those specific prerequisite technologies at home.

To be frank, we don't have a clue as to what 'spin off' technology will be developed when (not if) we began exercising the African technical mind. Who is say that we won't develope a totally different paradigm from western civilization. So, when we began to accept that the russians, americans, and chinese (who we really can't say much about, yet) are doing it right, we immediately say that we are not worthy of the task.

I don't like to see this force feeding of African nations by the same people who are responsible (whether directly or indirectly) for the problems of the African people. True, African Nations do need the tech, but as soon as funds are earmarked for a major purchase like this, an equal amount needs to be set aside to promote total understanding of the technology purchased. One thing about purchases of this nature is that you can't really reverse engineer them once their life span is depleted. They drift away or burn up in the atmosphere.

I'll post some links and stories i've collected in the past about space vehicles.

So for the most part, i hear what your saying, but we need a totally dynamic and unheard of approach to our future strategic presence on this planet.

Peace

We should sell transmission rights or whatever u call it for a very very very very huge price and make some of the countries in Africa that can't afford to build a satellite go back home think hard and after years come back and show us there state of the art satellite and laugh at us--We shouldn't make peole depend on us for better communiction that's what America and the EU are mean't for.

I believe thats the same Satellite that they said doesnt work at night, and thats why it couldnt capture images for the plane crashes last yr.

I hope sha that one day the satellite doesnt fall down, u know.......the maintenance culture thing

I was at the satellite launch , it's going to be used for mostly weather and agricultural purposes,

I recently joined this forum, and what i havee realised is that those Nigerians that are myopic in nature and thought are people who expect instant results. They want an instant solution to hunger (probably by the government dedicating a larget sector of its annuall budget). The thing is it doesnt work like that. Change on a scale such as a country is gradual. Allocating larger budjets to things like hunger just means other sectors of the budget would suffer and then those people would keep on complaining. As quite a number of people said, we need to come out of short sightedness.

Nigeria was labelled as a "High Risk" country for investments partly because infrastructures were not available to facilitate some kinds of business investments. MTN came, had to take some time to set up necessary infrastructure and set up a GSM network and because of that , thousands if not millions of direct and indirect employment opportuinities have been created which only helps to improve the GNP.

I also do not believe on that issue of having to build satellites. Those developed countries that currently manufacture things like satellites, developed over a very long period. I see no reason why we have to go through the same phase when we can easily use their experience to help us jumpstart our own development.

The only point that i can take out of those myopic people is if Nigerians would be able to effectively use these ammenities and infrastructure, but i believe Nigeria is becoming more technology concious and once the infrastructures are there, there will be people who would be able to use it effectively. Dont forget there are a lot of highly skilled Nigerians also schooled abroad who have more than sufficient skills .

P.S: Im hoping to also raise an awareness of the High bandwidth cables running through the indian and atlantic oceans (SAT-1 to 3). I discovered quite a lot of Nigerians do not even know about. it its about time we started explioting its potential

oh yeah just researched , the submarine fibre optic cable is called SAT-3/WASC/SAFE

The website of NASRDA NigeriaSat-1 http://www.nasrda.gov.ng/ has not worked for many months.
Do anyone knows an online link to NigeriaSat-1 imageries or email link to NASRDA staffs?

so we have a satellite which is presently of no commercial value to us . we have a satellite in space and yet our telecommunication is crap we pay through our noses for internet service did you know that the amount we pay for a month of subscription to those internet provider is enough to pay for a whole year in some countries you know Y cause they have functional satellite and they can easily draw back bones from it niJa needs to step up if we are ever going to catch up with the rest of the world thank GOD for CELTEL

Hello Guys,
I must first of all commend the efforts of the initiatives of this site. You guys are really doing good and thumbs up,
The issue at hand is a very good one and i'm not surprised atall at the heat it generated in this forum.
Believe me sincerely Anton, Tobi is makin a lot of points, real point, i saw the topic and i feel like contributing coz i'm relatively new with this site, but after critical look at some of your views here, i got nothing than to really commend Tobi for the enlightenment. Nigeria SAT1. The satellite is a Disaster Monitoring Constellation that can be used to prevnt some of the of the crises we are having now in the country. Fine, it is very important for us to take cognizance notice of the very poor level people are living in Nigeria. An estimation of over 70% of Nigeria live below the poverty level and government in the own initiative shave formulated policies to combat this all to no avail. Policies that have practice in the developed countries and have proven to be best, i was opportuned to read the AUgust edition of the TELL magazine where Col. Togun the then DG of the SSS defending Gen. Babangida, in his comment he all the programmes initiated by the government of the then maximum ruler are good and that the General meant well for us, He said programmes like MAMSER, DFFRRI and SAP were tried in some other developing countries in the world and they seems to be working. The point here is that to arhue the statement, the fundamental points i'm trying to bring out is that, why are our plans in Nigeria both by government and individual always fail. We have a impending problems which we need to tackled if we want to planned and we want the execution go well. Things like the Remote sensing orbits are what the developed countries based their plans on and hence its success.
DFFRRI is a good policies anytime anyday but where we dont have the correct, qualititative data to based our agriculture on our Agricultural policies will continuing to flop. And this applied to every other spheres of our life. For instance, the NIG SAT1 is specification built for disater management, i saw a future when the NIG SAT1 will be fully utilised when the cries of environmental abuses in the niger delta will be no more.When the Niger Deltans will be able to carry out their fishing activities without disturbance from the oil exploration by the oil companies. This I think will go along way in reducing the poverty level in the region.
I quite agreed with you Antom, on the point that we should start initiating plans on how to start building our own sattelite and not too over dependence on the developed world but you and I know that we in a globalizing world no country can be completely independent.My brother let takes things easy, we shall get there definitely, the problems we are having is our leaders that seems to be short sighted and fails to move with the pace technology is moving, we should all be praying for 2007, the right leader that actually know and have what is takes is what Nigerains needed to take us to this promise land.
NIG SAT1 is an applaudable development and I can confirmed that images of it is out ready for public though with an exoberant rates. Everybody needs it, corporate business people everybody msut tapped from the benefits the satellites portends. Like what Tobi said, it has been discovered now that alot of the business policies we made are geographical based, come to think of it, may say the success of this communications companies like M.T.N and the rest can be attributed to the map based decision, i think i'm right.
I really have to submit at this point, but i have to really commend you guys the initiatives of the sites, Tobi, Anton everybody you are wonderful. I really wished i meet you online. But vitally important to Tobi, I really want to know you, you can meet me on adeomo2002@yahoo.com, that is my mail address and my I.D too.
CYA

adewaleafolabi:

so we have a satellite which is presently of no commercial value to us . we have a satellite in space and yet our telecommunication is crap we pay through our noses for internet service did you know that the amount we pay for a month of subscription to those internet provider is enough to pay for a whole year in some countries you know Y cause they have functional satellite and they can easily draw back bones from it niJa needs to step up if we are ever going to catch up with the rest of the world thank GOD for CELTEL

That is ridiculously funny, i'm laughing my guts out, Nigeria's telecomunication sector is excellent compared to a lot of countries, Nigeria will have a 3G network by the end of the year, when it does it will be in line with countries like America and Britain