Nigerian Minister of State for Science and Technology Dr Alhassan Zaku confirmed on Wednesday that NigComsat-I, Africa's first communication satellite was not missing but parked to conserve its energy.
Zaku told State House correspondents after Wednesday's Federal Executive Council meeting that the satellite developed a problem on Tuesday, necessitating its demobilization.
He said that engineers manning the satellite station in Nigeria noticed that its battery was not charging on early Tuesday but could not rectify the problem.
"Very early in the morning yesterday, at about 4 a.m., our engineers who are manning the ground station here in Abuja noticed that the satellite in the orbit was not being recharged," the minister was quoted as saying by the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). Repair work was underway.
The minister said that the company took the option of parking the satellite to conserve its energy and avoid a collision with other satellites in the orbit.
On the possible cause of the problem, Zaku said that the satellite could have been blocked from the sun, which makes it impossible for the solar batteries to recharge.
He allayed the fears of companies whose payload the satellite was carrying, saying that they were being migrated to another transponder in the meantime.
"All the customers whose payload we are carrying have been assured that we will migrate whatever we are carrying for them into another transponder, so they need not to fear at all, of course they are not going to pay anything," he added.
Zaku said that in the event that the satellite could not be repaired, the company that insured it would replace it with another one in the orbit or build another one.
His confirmation echoed Ahmed Rufai, managing director of NigComsat Ltd, who also refuted allegations that NigComsat-1 was missing in orbit in earlier Wednesday.
The satellite was designed to serve as the strategic backbone for the nation's communication industry.
It was also meant to provide the much-needed bridge to close the digital divide being experienced by African nations and provide the enabling platform for Africa to be relevant in today's information age and digital economy.
Nigerian local media quoted unnamed sources as saying on Tuesday that the satellite was "missing" in its launch position in orbit.
Source: Xinhua
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