COPUOS/T.551
Page 12
Mr. Chairman, Nigeria is making progress in
its effort to design, build and launch the first Nigerian
Communication Satellite, a critical ICT infrastructure
in Nigeria and Africa, in collaboration with China
Greatwall Industry Corporation. The agreement for the
project implementation covers the Know-How
Technology Transfer to 55 Nigerian engineers and
scientists who are presently undergoing training in
China. NigeriaSat-1 (NigcomSat-1?) is a hybrid
geostationary satellite with a lift-off mass of over 5,150
kilograms. Other cutting edge features of NigcomSat-1
include 30 active and 10 redundant transponders in C-,
Ku, Ka- and L-Bands with footprints over Africa and
beans for trunk communication services between
Europe and Africa. The target date for the satellite
launch is December 2006 or, at the latest, March 2007.
To justify Nigeria’s investment in the communication
satellite project, the National Space Research and
Development Agency, in collaboration with Kemilinks
International and Spacetech, organized a three-day
Workshop on the theme “The Nigerian Communication
Satellite Project: Opportunities for Investors and
Service Providers”. The Workshop provided an
opportunity to examine the current status and future
trends of satellite communications technology and the
potential areas of applications. It also reviewed the
policy, regulatory, operational and business issues that
would derive from the provision of satellite
communications services in Nigeria. Already notable
institutions from both the public and private sectors
signed agreements to invest substantially into the
communication satellite project in terms of direct
investment and the purchase of transponders.
Mr. Chairman, Nigeria, in partnership with
UNESCO, organized a one-week Workshop on Space
Education in Nigeria. Students and teachers from
secondary and tertiary institutions participated in the
Workshop. UNESCO has made available two of its
activity centres for teaching, education and
atmospheric and planetary research available to the
Agency.
In November 2005, Nigeria hosted the First
African Leadership Conference on Space Science and
Technology for Sustainable Development in Africa.
The Workshop was attended by participants from 17
African countries and United Nations observer bodies.
The Conference was used as a forum to sensitize all
African countries, including African member States of
COPUOS, to maximize the benefits of space
technology for human development and to be proactive
in COPUOS activities. One of the outcomes of the
Conference was the formation of a Steering
Committee, made up of representatives of Nigeria,
South Africa, Kenya, Algeria, Egypt and the Economic
Community for Africa, ECA, to deliberate on the way
forward. South Africa and Nigeria, as I reported
earlier, have offered to host the second and third
editions of the Conference in the last quarters of 2007
and 2009, respectively. It was agreed that the
Conference would be held every two years.
Participants from Nigeria, Algeria, South
Africa and Kenya also used the opportunity of the
African Leadership Conference to advance the progress
made towards the development of the African
Resource Management constellation satellites which
include the proposed NigeriaSat-2. The user
requirement survey and technical parameters of the
ARM satellites, which take into account the needs of
the individual countries and African needs as a whole,
and the inclusion of both medium and very high-
resolution payloads, are still being discussed.
Similarly, an International Workshop on
Space Law, which was jointly organized by the United
Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the
Nigerian Government and held in Abuja in November
2005. As mentioned earlier by the Director of the
Office for Outer Space Affairs, the Workshop provided
an opportunity to introduce space law to the Nigerian
legal practitioners and policy makers and, indeed, to
enhance the development of space law in Nigeria.
Mr. Chairman, Nigeria is pleased to express
her willingness to support the DMISCO initiative by
the coordination of its programme in Africa, through
the donation of two experts and office accommodation
with working facilities. Nigeria will also support the
disaster management activities of DMISCO through
access to her space assets in accordance with her
national data policy.
Nigeria is fostering international cooperation
through the Space Research Agency and its activity
centres. The Centre for Basic Space Science and
Astronomy, at Nsukka, for example, has signed
Memoranda of Understanding, MOU’s, with a number
of international institutions, such as the National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan, South Africa’s
Astronomical Observatory and the University of
Delaware, Harvard, in the United States, for
collaboration in the areas of astronomy and
astrophysics, capacity-building, atmospheric science,
instrumentation and climate change
observation/monitoring. The Centre has also acquired
a 25 centimetre optical telescope for the purpose of
promoting the teaching of planetary sciences in
Nigeria’s High School and tertiary institutions. The
Centre has published the first “Nigerian Journal of
Space Research”, which is devoted to highlighting