Besides, foreign intelligence sources are worried over what may have caused the failure of the Nigerian satellite, barely 18 months after launch.
The worries in global intelligence circles are predicated on what the future holds for the safety of more expensive and strategic satellites worldwide, if the Nigerian satellite is discovered to have been downed following an erroneous or malicious programming code sent from its ground control station in Abuja.
The Nation also gathered from official sources in Lagos and Abuja that the NigComSat 1 Satellite, may also have been under-insured in error, as officials exchanged memos at the expiration of the tenure of the satellite’s first year’s insurance five months ago. But details are still sketchy. Officials said the government would definitely address the media on the issue in the next few days.
The Managing Director of NigComSat Limited, managers of the satellite, Mr. Ahmed Rufai, at the weekend only said "the Satellite was fully insured." But industry sources knowledgeable in such matters hinted that the issue was more complex. Their claim is that the specific terms of insurance stated by the broker is what matters in the case of high technology equipment such as that of the now damaged satellite.
The insurers of the Satellite or the brokers have not yet been revealed by the government. But industry experts fear that specific insurance details, which may have left out the ground control station in Abuja out of the insurance cover, in a cost-cutting measure, may have unwittingly caused a lower valuation for the satellite itself.
The contention is that the original valuation for the insurance cover for the Satellite and the ground control station was said to have been in excess of more than $180 million, with an insurance premium hovering between $30 million and N54 million, but that as a cost-cutting measure, a lower valuation was submitted to reduce the premium that would have been paid.
It was not clear at the weekend if the charges schemed off the original value that was to have been insured, left the value of the satellite intact.
Nigeria spent almost $300 million on communication Satellite acquisition, launch, training and the construction of a ground control station in Abuja. The Satellite alone, cost about $102 million and The Nation gathered that the details of the insured items and insurance terms as submitted by the broker and accepted by the insuring firm determine the level of compensation.
The NigComSat Satellite 1 switched to its night-mode batteries as the sun set in Space late last Sunday, as it was supposed to do, but failed to switch back to its primary solar power source, when the Sun came up.
It, instead, continued running on batteries. In Space, Satellites derive their electric power mostly from solar panels, which in daytime power the Satellites themselves, while also charging batteries that provide power during the night. After two days of continuous operation on its batteries, the managers of Satellite had to shut it down to retain some amount of electric power that will now be needed to send down the Satellite back to Earth where it will be destroyed by a combination of gravity and pressure as it re-enters the Earth.
Though it cost more than N12 billion, the Nigerian Satellite is not expensive enough to command the near $200 million that NASA says Satellite repairs in space cost. Unlike many multi-billion dollar American Satellites and other space-based equipment which astronauts, cosmonauts and robots are sent to space to repair, the Nigerian Satellite which has now been confirmed to have totally lost its ability to generate its own power in Space, will have to be brought back to earth and be destroyed in the process.
The Satellite was not expected to have any serious malfunction until it has reached year 10 of its 18-year life span.
courtesy:
The Nation newspaper
http://www.thenationonlineng.com/dynamicpage.asp?id=70057
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