By Prince Osuagwu
LAGOS — Replacement for the failed Nigerian Communications Satellite, NIGCOMSAT1R, may go up to the orbit end of 2011. This date, according to the managers of the Satellite, Nigerian Communications Satellite Company Limited, NigComSAT Ltd, was given by the Chinese company, China Walls, handling the project.

However, the company also revealed that the Nigerian government was putting pressure on the Chinese company to speed up work on the project to have it launched at an earlier date.

Speaking with journalists in an interactive session yesterday in Abuja, CEO of NigcomSat, Engr Ahmed Rufai, said he just returned from China, where in the company of Minister of Finance and other government officials, inspected the level of work on the Satellite replacement.

According to Rufai, work on the project was at the finishing stage and the company building the satellite has picked December 2011 as the month to launch the satellite but the government officials who saw the speed of work argued that it can be done in an earlier time if more effort is added.

Nigeria’s first communication satellite, NigComSat1, was in 2008, de-orbited shortly after it was launched into space in 2007.

Rufai said: “I just returned from China, where, in the company of Minister of Finance and other government officials, we went to assess the level of work on NigComSat1R. The minister himself was happy with the level of work so far and was optimistic that given a little more effort it could be launched even earlier than the December 2011 date the satellite builders was slating. But what ever happens, we are sure now that all things being equal, the replacement for Nigcomsat1 would go into space by fourth quarter of 2011″

Explaining what led to de-orbiting the satellite in the first place, NigComSat project manager, Abdulrahim Adajah, said it was as a result of the technical challenges it had, which could happen to any space satellite. He said shortly after Nigeria lost her satellite in orbit in 2008, three other countries also lost several satellites as well.

He assured Nigerians that as soon as the satellite is relaunched, the agency would embark on the second project tagged NigComSat2.
Adajah saidNigComSat1R as a communication satellite would help Nigeria in strengthening broadcast operations, boost broadband development, monitor and track railway, sea and air  haulages on different routes and would equally help in controlling national security issues.

Adajah said the Chinese who built the failed NigCom Sat1 was also building the replacement satellite at no extra cost to Nigeria
According to him, having trained more than 500 Engineers between the time the first satellite was built and now, the replacement would now be monitored and controlled in Nigeria from the very first day it would be launched, even though the there would be presence of the Chinese engineers in Nigeria to also straighten operations.

He added that his company has built enough capacity on the ground stations in Abuja for the control and monitoring of NigComSat1R