Abstract
Subsequent to the launch of the first Nigerian satellite into space in September 2003, the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Abuja, Nigeria, has demonstrated peaceful use of outer space through the commercial, educational, humanitarian and governmental applications of its five successfully launched satellites so far. The nation has also maintained a sustainable national development since achieving this feat by joining other nations in space operations. Satellite operations are carried out indigenously by Nigerian engineers and scientists from the Mission Control Ground Station (MCGS), Abuja, Nigeria. Its three remote sensing satellites, NigeriaSat-1, NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2, and two communication satellites, NIGCOMSAT-1 and NIGCOMSAT-1R, have addressed the status of space operations and complied with its peaceful use of outer space. With the successful completion of its mission lifetime, NigeriaSat-1 which was in the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) was de-orbited after about 9 years of useful and peaceful satellite operations. During its mission lifetime, it responded to both local and international disasters including sustainable development campaigns initiated jointly or individually for satellites in the constellation such as Hurricane Katrina and the development of a national resource inventory showing land-use/land-cover mapping at 1:50,000 among others. In continuation of these recorded achievements, NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2 which are advanced Earth observation (EO) microsatellites equipped with enhanced imaging performance for improved capability and applications have equally witnessed improved satellite operations from the Abuja MCGS. NIGCOMSAT-1 and NIGCOMSAT-1R have also been applied in telemedicine, teleconferencing, data transfer, internet services, e-library, etc. In the course of our satellite operations, useful lessons have been learnt in the management and operations of more than one satellite from a single ground station for the remote sensing satellites. Therefore, in this paper, we review and share our operational experiences, achievements and future direction on our quest into space for sustainable development through the use of our remote sensing and communication satellites.
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Ikpaya, I.O., Onuh, S.O., Achem, C.U., Okehie, B.M., Madalla, F.Y. (2017). Pursuit of Nigeria into Space for Sustainable Development. In: Cruzen, C., Schmidhuber, M., Lee, Y., Kim, B. (eds) Space Operations: Contributions from the Global Community. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51941-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51941-8_11
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