Nigeria Orbits First Comsat; Plans to Land Nigerians on the Moon by 2030
Nigeria's NigcomSat 1. (Nasrda photo)
BEIJING, China, May 15, 2007 - Satnews Daily - Nigeria, with China’s help, has successfully launched NigcomSat-1, its first communications satellite and the first satellite made by China for any foreign country.
NigcomSat-1 was carried into space by a Chinese Long March 3-B rocket that blasted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province. The Xian Satellite Control center said the satellite is now in orbit.
NigcomSat-1 is a hybrid geostationary satellite designed to operate over Africa, parts of the Middle East and southern Europe. Orbit raising maneuvers will raise the satellite to its final position at 42 degrees East longitude. NigcomSat-1 is expected to become fully operational before the end of the year. It has a life span of 15 years.
The satellite will be monitored and tracked by a ground station to be built in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, by Chinese firm Great Wall Industry Corporation, and a ground station in Kashgar, in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Great Wall will offer support services and train Nigerian technicians in satellite control.
The Nigerian government said the Abuja facility has the potential to make Nigeria a major telecom traffic hub in the West and Central African region. Analysts believe NigcomSat-1 will revolutionize telecommunications, broadcasting and broadband multimedia services in Africa. Nigeria expects to earn $70 million annually from transponder leases on NigcomSat-1.
NigcomSat-1 is expected to save Nigerian broadband users more than $95 million a year, and provide Internet access to remote rural villages. It will save more than $660 million in phone-call charges and create some 150,000 jobs for Nigerians, said the government.
NigcomSat-1 project managing director Hammed Rufai said the satellite would help Nigeria break free from over reliance on its oil industry and transform Nigeria into a knowledge-based economy.
China was awarded the contract to build NigcomSat-1 in 2004 after it outbid 21 international rivals to secure the $311 million project. The satellite and carrier rocket were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, both under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. NigcomSat-1 is one of 30 foreign satellites China has been commissioned to build.
Nigeria orbited its first satellite, NigerSat-1, an Earth observation satellite, in 2003. It plans to launch its third satellite, NigerSat-2, in 2009.
NigerSat-2 will be a high-resolution 300 kg satellite made by SSTL of the UK. It will carry two payloads: a high resolution imager providing 2.5 meter panchromatic and 5 meter 4 band multispectral data with a swath of 20 km, and a 32 meter resolution multispectral imager providing data in four spectral bands with a swath of 300 km.
Nigeria’s Science and Technology Minister Professor Turner Isoun said the country’s space program is expected to grow by leaps and bounds and will culminate in Nigeria sending a manned mission to the Moon by 2030. Should this come to fruition, the feat will make Nigeria the first African country to land men on the Moon. China, the supplier of technology and hardware for Nigeria’s space ambitions, plans to land its “yuhangyuans’ (astronauts) on the Moon from 2020 to 2025, becoming only the second country and first Asian nation to send men to the Moon.
