National Space Research and Development Agency

The national space program and the corresponding coordinating agency with an initial annual budget of 2.2 million dollars as part of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology after the preparatory period since 1998 were founded on August 1, 2001 by the decree of President Olusegun Obasanjo , for which 93 million dollars were initially allocated . The State Council on Space Technology was headed by the president.

On May 10, 2006, the country's expanded new space program was adopted.

The agency’s modern satellite monitoring and control center was built in the capital Abuja .

In the exploration and exploration of outer space, Nigeria collaborates with the United Kingdom, China, Ukraine and Russia. In China, 55 Nigerian engineers were trained.

Nigeria has become the third African country (after South Africa and Algeria) with its own satellites and currently has 5 launched artificial Earth satellites . Plans to launch the first satellite in 1976 were not implemented. The first Nigerian satellite NigeriaSat-1, worth $ 30 million, weighing 100 kg, built in the UK by SSTL with the participation of scientists from Nigeria, was launched for the international emergency monitoring system DMC on September 27, 2003 on the Russian space launch vehicle Cosmos-3M from Russian spaceport Plesetsk . The NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X satellites of remote sensing of the Earth of the same production weighing 300 kg were launched on August 17, 2011 on the Ukrainian launch vehicle Dnepr from the Russian space center Yasny . Manufactured in China for the established Nigerian Communication Satellite ltd, the first African geostationary telecommunications satellite NigComSat-1 with a mass of 5.15 tons was launched by the Chinese launch vehicle Great Voyage-3B E on May 13, 2007 from the Chinese Xichang cosmodrome, and after failure, it was replaced by the NigComSat-1R satellite, launched on December 19, 2011.

It is planned to continue using satellites involved in space exploration of mineral deposits, weather prediction, communications and scientific research. Including It is planned to launch NigComSat-2 and NigComSat-3 communication satellites in 2012 and 2013, a NigeriaSAR-1 military Earth remote sensing satellite with a synthetic aperture radar in 2015, and even an AMS for further moon exploration.

Around 2015, it is planned to prepare and launch the first Nigerian astronaut in a foreign spacecraft. To this end, negotiations were conducted with Russia and China.

Also in the future, it is planned to independently create their own satellites around 2018, a launch vehicle and a space center in 2025-2028 with Ukrainian help.

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