Nigeria, China seal deal on new satellites
By Sonny Aragba-Akpore, Deputy Communications Editor
SEVENTY-seven days after the country's pioneer Satellite, NigComSat-1 disappeared in orbit, Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NigComSat-1) and its Chinese technical partners, China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), have sealed a deal for the replacement of NigComSat-1 and staggered building of two other satellites - NigComSat-2 and NigComSat-3.
Government sources at the weekend said the deal was sealed last week between both companies and representatives of Nigeria and China.
NigComSat-1 disappeared on November 10, last year as a result of power failure, throwing many businesses and corporate organisations into a dilemma since there was no backup.
But officials of NigComSat said at the weekend that the reason for the building of two additional satellites was principally to serve as backup and forestall a situation where businesses crash along with a failed satellite.
For example, Astra 5A satellite which served many cable networks in Germany and Internet networks across Eastern Europe crashed last week but because it had a back-up all customers were smoothly migrated to another Astra satellite with minimal losses.
The replacement of NigCOmSat-1 will be concluded in the last quarter of next year (2010) while NigCOmSat-2 and NigCOmSat-3 will come on stream six months and 12 months respectively from the re-launch of NigCOmSat-1.
NigComSat-1, unlike ASTRA 5A, had no back-up satellite thus exposing the Nigeria satellite company to one of the industry's most dreaded challenges that is, inability to switch clients to other satellites when problems occur in orbit. To prevent a recurrence, China wants a staggered plan for the launch of NigComSat- 2 and NigComSat-3 built into the new deal as part of strategies to avoid the dilemma faced by customers when the solar panel of Africa's first communication satellite failed last year.
The Chinese are going ahead with the building of the replacement satellite for NigComSat-1 while under-writers work on insurance claims by China and Nigeria. NigcomSat-1 was built by the CGWIC at a cost of $256 million.
Operated by NigComSat Limited, it became the first African geosynchronous communications satellite when it was launched. NigComSat-1 was insured by a consortium of international insurance firms - including SpaceCo of France, Munich Cray of Germany and the People's Insurance Company of China. Local insurance companies, which banded together as co-insurers, retained about 10 per cent of the risks and shared an equivalent percentage of the premium.
China is also providing the lead fund for the replacement of the NigComSat-1 and the subsequent launch of the two back-up satellites, a senior ministry official said in Abuja.
His words: "The Chinese government is particularly worried by the misconception surrounding the satellite as expressed in the media here in the country. It is also concerned that its first efforts at exporting its satellite technology to a country like Nigeria is being mis-construed by the unfortunate loss. It has, therefore, given instructions that all efforts must be put together to straighten things out. But the Nigerian and Chinese governments are keen to address the challenge quickly."
The NigComSat- project inspired Nigeria's push to have its own satellite built by its own engineers by 2015. One of the cardinal aims of the initiative was to create a pool of Nigerian satellite engineers to sustain the country's entry into space technology.
"The cornerstone of Nigeria's Communications Satellite project is to develop indigenous capability in satellite building, hence the inclusion of training under a Know How Technology Transfer (KHTT) programme for the company's engineers. The training and learning under the programme can never be lost but rather developed further and applied as in the present case to address national technological challenges and requirement," said NigComSat Limited in an official statement by its Director of Strategy, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Abimbola Alale.
NigComSat-1 was recorded as an in-orbit loss 18 months after its successful launch to join the league of other satellites that have been parked in orbit.
The satellite industry remains a high-stake venture with a mix of great benefits and risks. According to Geng Kun, spokesman for CGWIC, "the solar wing malfunctioned, which led to exhaustion of electric power, then the satellite failed. Most satellites carry solar panels on an extendable wing to generate electricity, with backup batteries activated only when in the earth's shadow."
More than 60 satellites built in Europe, Asia and the Americas have in the last 18 months been lost in space with varying degrees of problems. But solar panel failure accounts for a greater percentage of the loss. They include the loss of Intelsat 802, Thaicom 3, built by Europe-based Alcatel Alenia Space, Hotbird 3 owned and operated by Eutelsat, PAS-6 communication satellite, RASCOM QAF-1 and Galaxy 26 among others between 2004 and 2008.
Alale added: "Nigeria's challenges with NigComSat-1 highlights some of the learning curves of India's entry into the satellite industry over a decade ago. India's first attempts in space with INSAT-1A built by Ford Aerospace of USA, now Loral Space System, and launched on April 10, 1982 failed barely four months later on September 6, 1982. One year later, a replacement satellite, INSAT-B, built by the same firm launched on August 30, 1983 also suffered until September 1983 when the controllers were able to deploy its solar array, thus enabling it to operate until 1990 when it was finally replaced by INSAT-ID.
"India's third satellite, INSAT-1C launched on 21 July, 1988 to provide back-up to INSAT-1B, also failed one year in-orbit in 1999 when a power system failure knocked out one of the two buses. Unrelenting, India forged ahead to the point where it developed its first indigenous satellite that was launched in 1992 barely 10 years after its first satellite purchase.
"Despite the NigComSat-1 failure, "a lot has been and is being achieved by this project. Nigeria today remains the first country in Africa to own a communications satellite and among the first 45 nations of the world to have a satellite in space. We are also among the first 17 to own two spacecraft in a period of three years.
"Today, Nigeria has over 100 spacecraft engineers that have the capacity to design a satellite, assembly, integrate and test with available facilities. Nigerians have developed competency in space craft station keeping and telemetry software engineering which spin off is being channeled in applied research to address national needs and challenges."
