Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) said on Monday that it will launch NigeriaSat-2, a mini-satellite, to replace NigeriaSat-1 in 2009.

Robert Boroffice, director general of the agency, said at the launch of the National Space Center that NigeriaSat-2 would be built by Nigerian engineers, under the supervision of technical partners from the British Space Center in Surrey, UK.

The launch of the satellite had become imperative in view of the designed target life of NigeriaSat-1 that ends in 2008.

NigeriaSat-1, a low earth Orbit micro satellite which is the first in sub-Saharan Africa, was launched into orbit in September 2003.

More than 150 Nigerian scientists and engineers had been trained in various aspects of space technology, Boroffice said.

These engineers were also trained in space application in South Africa, the Netherlands, Italy, Canada, China, the Unite States, UK and the United Arab Emirates, he added.

"These initiatives are undertaken with a view to building capacity for the building of future generation of Nigerian satellites with minimum supervision," he said.

According to Boroffice, Nigeria had undertaken the development of "a National Geo-spatial Data Infrastructure aimed at providing a one-stop-shop or national center for geospatial metadata."

Source: Xinhua