Space Engineers Advocate Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite To Combat Insecurity

The Nigerian Institute of Space Engineers (NISE) has reiterated the need for additional satellites with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to enable the country to tackle insecurity and other national challenges.

The National Chairman of NISE, Dr. George Okpanachi, made the request on Thursday on the sideline of the training programme for security agents on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Cyber Security, which started on Sept. 6.

Okpanachi said the training formed part of the institute’s activities while the current one targeted how security agencies could use artificial intelligence and machine learning to combat insurgency in the country.

“The target is on how space technology can be used to combat insurgency and we are also advocating for the launch of more satellites in space.

“We are advocating especially for those that have the capability because security factor was not considered in the design of the existing satellites we presently have in space.

“We are looking at having satellites with Synthetic Aperture Radar that will not have challenges of weather coverage.

“The SAR satellite is able to pick objects on the earth, differentiating objects from humans,’’ Okpanachi said.

The chairman said that SAR satellites had the advantage over the regular Earth Observation satellite owned by the country.

According to him, it has a high resolution, can supply imagery on-demand, with reliable global change monitoring in 3D, among other benefits.

Okpanachi further said that tackling insecurity required the need to intensify the country’s border management as well as checking ungoverned spaces because most insurgents live there.

He said that the institute had trained 10 security personnel.

SAR satellites orbit the Earth in a sun-synchronous LEO polar orbit and data acquisitions could be made at any time of day or night independent of cloud coverage, collecting both amplitude and phase data.