The National Space Research and Development Agency has presented first images from the Earth Observation satellite (Nigeria Sat-1) which was launched through a very precise orbit injection by a Russian Kosmos rocket on September 27 this year , to President Olusegun Obasanjo. The images were downloaded from the Abuja Mission Control Center, which according to the Director General of the Agency Professor R.A Boroffice is about completing its calibration period. Nigeriasat-1 is part of a Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC)

Boroffice also confirmed that there are offers for cooperation on the make and launch of a communication satellite (NigComSat-1) from China, Italy, United Kingdom and Russia and stressed that all offers were being carefully studied before any commitment is made by the federal government.

Meanwhile a technical meeting of the international DMC partners will take place at SSTL on Tuesday and Wednesday (November 4-5) to discuss the implementation of the constellation mission planning and networking and to finalise the data archiving and catalogue system. This will be followed by a full meeting of the DMC Consortium to be hosted by TUBITAK-BILTEN in Turkey between 17 and 18 November 2003 to review progress and plans for formal DMC operations which is expected to commence in January 2004.

Information from Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) of United Kingdom, makers of Nigeriasat-1 however, confirms that Nigeriasat-1 with, BILSAT-1, and UK-DMC are progressing extremely well through their in-orbit commissioning.