Nigeria Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) has announced that the country is working on launching a new satellite to replace NigeriaSat-2 which has been in orbit since 2011.
NigeriaSat-2 was launched alongside NigeriaSat-X at the Yasny military base in Russia. The satellite was developed and built by UK-based film Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) and it was launched into orbit by Ukrainian Dnepr rocket.
Since its launch, NigeriaSat2 has assisted Nigeria in satellite imaging for applications in mapping, water resources management, agricultural land use, population estimation, health hazard monitoring and disaster mitigation and management.
According to a report in Space in Africa, the agency’s acting Director-General Francis Chizea revealed that work would start immediately towards the success of the new satellite.
“We have the idea of where we are supposed to build the facility that can allow us to build satellite components up to a 1000 kilograms. We have been able to build some components for the spacecraft, so even for the satellite that we plan to launch, one or two of the components that will fly out will be built by us,” Chizea said.
NigeriaSat-2 is an Earth observation type satellite launched to provide high-resolution (Pan and MS) imagery in a swath width of 20 km.
