by Ugo Okeke

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Abdu Bulama, disclosed recently in Abuja that Nigeria would have its first satellite in space by 2018.

Bulama stated this when he inspected facilities at the Obasanjo Space Centre of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). He said the centre had the mandate to launch Nigeria’s first indigenous satellite by 2018, and described the project as an important component of the Nigerian Dream.

He said, “The Assembly, Testing and Integration Centre, and the Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite are the nucleus of NASRDA. The satellite ought to be launched by 2018, to be built in Nigeria and launched by Nigerian scientists,”

Nigeria aims to follow countries such as India, which just launched a $74 million spacecraft into orbit around Mars this month. The satellite is India’s first Mars mission, and it placed the country in the elite club of space explorers that includes the United States, the European Space Agency and the former Soviet Union.

The success of the mission marks a milestone for the country of 1.2 billion people, in demonstrating that it can conduct complex missions and act as a global launchpad for commercial, navigational and research satellites. It also demonstrates that India has a science and technology-oriented educational system that has produced millions of software programmers, engineers, and so on.

Given the critical role of space technology in national security, telecommunications and industrialisation, the national space programme is considered top priority by the Nigerian government, officials say.

Nigeria needs to develop projects that will advance the country technologically, so the country can make its own cars, aircraft and spacecraft.

Countries in the space race

United States

The United States’ Project Mercury spanned five years and it cost around $277 million. The second one was the Gemini programme, which had a lifespan of six years and cost approximately $1.3 billion. The most famous space mission that the country has done is the Apollo. The program cost $20.4 billion and had a lifespan of fifteen years. The United States has spent approximately $486 billion over the past 57 years on human space flights alone. On the average, the country spent $8.3 billion a year on space missions.

China

China are now planning to launch their fifth space flight costing about $6.27 billion. By the year 2020, the China National Space Agency intends to put a permanent station in space and have completed crewed expeditions to Mars and to the moon.

Russia

The government had a federal space budget of $2.4 billion in the year 2009. In 2011, the government spent about $3.8 billion for their space programs. Their proposed budget for the year 2013 was $5.6 billion.

Japan

Japan’s first space launch was the Hayabusa that cost the country $138 million. Japan is planning to put out the Hayabusa 2 in the year 2014, which will cost $150-400 million.

United Kingdom

The UK are currently budgeting around $16 to $31 million for the development of their intermediate missions.

France

France’s space programmes include human space flight and other unmanned exploration missions to other planets. The country will be launching a new space balloon, for which the agency would provide a budget of $10 million for the construction and the flight itself. The agency has already spent about $5.3 billion for their space flight missions since 2012.

India

As of now, India has spent a hefty sum on space research. They have already spent about $1.6 billion so far.

Iran

Iran jointly launched a satellite with Russia under the Sinah-1 project, which cost them $15 million. In the year 2008, Iran had a joint research programme with Thailand and China, launching a satellite named Long March 2C, which cost around $6.5 million.

Korea

Korea is one of Asia’s leading countries when it comes to launching space missions. As of now, they have already launched three space flights. The first one was the Naro-1 and it was sent launched three times. The total cost of the first three launches was over $450 million and the third launch was the most successful among the three.

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A version of this piece first appeared on the Engineering Network