The Director and Chief Executive of Center for Satellite Technology Development, CSTD, Dr Spencer Onuh Wednesday said that the center aims at ensuring that Satellites and other space technologies are designed and manufactured locally in Nigeria. Dr Onuh who stated this at the opening ceremony of a three-day conference in Abuja to mark the CSTD week said that the center has highly skilled personnel that can be used to achieve this dream if enabling environment is created. “CSTD is ready to indigenously design and manufacture satellites in Nigeria if challenged with the right climate of operations. It might interest you to know that one of the countries engineers and scientists that were trained in SSTL along with our engineers and scientists have successfully designed and manufacture satellite in their own country. “This is because they were provided with a functional Design Centre, Assembly Integrated and Testing facilities (DC/AIT)”, he said. He said that the conference will also establish working relationships among corporate bodies and individuals which he stressed will help them to achieve their goals. “CSTD week conference is a two-day event aimed at providing a solid interaction between various government organizations, corporate bodies and academia so as to establish a firm relationship between various sectors. This would assist each individual company to achieve some of their goals faster, more effectively at a lower cost” “We have products which as a result of our in-depth knowledge and training that are very useful to other agencies. So we believe that Nigeria is not leaping the benefits of space yet”, he said. Onuh further explained that space technology remains the driving force behind most developed economies pointing out that it is the driving force for terrestrial technology and that it provides security, telecommunications, urban planning, and provides a host of daily services such as navigation, internet, digital broadcasting among others. He commended the efforts of the federal government for the sole funding of the space program adding that the “roadmap” is on course and CSTD management and staff are ready to achieve the centre’s mission as approved by the Federal Executive Council, FEC. Earlier while declaring the event open, the Director General of National Air Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA, Prof Seidu Mohammed, represented by the Director of Engineering and Space research, Dr Olufemi Agboola said that ensuring local manufacturing of these will increase Nigeria’s GDP and make the country to be among the top economies. “We should look at the GDP of the country. All the great countries we have, there is something there that comes out, and it is their manufacturing capability. 40 percent of their GDP come from their manufacturing capabilities. So if Nigeria can move to even just 25 percent, in manufacturing everything will change”, he said. The CSTD is an activity center under NARSDA and it has a primary goal to develop indigenous satellite systems for various applications.
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