NASRDA’s Experience in Human Capacity Development and Capability Accumulation in Satellite Technology

Abstract

The National Space Research & Development Agency (NASRDA) was created in 1999 to coordinate and oversee all space activities for Nigeria. With little or no human space technology capacity and capability at inception, the agency embarked on an aggressive human capacity building and accumulation mission. From its creation, the agency has been strongly committed to achieving independent satellite development capability. As the agency celebrates its 20 years of existence in 2019, it has emerged as one of the largest space institutions in the African continent - launching five successful satellites of various sizes, all of which involved technology transfers to Nigerian scientists and engineers. NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X were two medium Earth Observation satellites launched in 2011 to provide medium resolution imagery to serve the needs of various institutions not only within Nigeria, but also other nations through a constellation of satellites managed by the DMCii, UK. While NigeriaSat-2 was procured from SSTL, NigeriaSat-X served as a training model through which satellite engineering design skills were transferred to Nigerian Engineers from SSTL, UK. Six years after the launch of NigeriSat-2 and Nigerisat-X, a cubesat dubbed “NigeriEduSat-1” was launched from a university-to-university (U2U) collaboration between FUTA, Akure and KIT, Japan. The U2U collaboration, facilitated by National Space Research & Development Agency, was aimed at improving technology absorption and local diffusion of satellite engineering within the country. This paper reviews strides made by NASRDA in accumulating know-how satellite development and further discusses the various efforts made in building its first satellite independently.