From October 12 to 22 representatives of the National Centre for Remote Sensing, Jos, Nigeria attended the NOAA Data Processing training course at ScanEx Research and Development Centre, which for the first time provided in-house training courses for attendees from non-CIS countries.

The curriculum of the NOAA Data Processing Course included technical part (operation and resupply of Alice-SC receiving station) and software training which provided the attendees with theoretic basis and hands-on skills for ScanMagic and MeteoGamma software products. It also reviewed application of NOAA data using the above software for cloud studies, forecasting, prompt detection of fires, calculation of vegetation index, monitoring of emergencies (floods, dust storms, hurricanes, etc). Nigeria National Centre for Remote Sensing was provided with four packages of MeteoGamma software. In addition specialists of Nigeria National Centre for Remote Sensing received updated versions of ScanMagic LL software for processing meteorological images and a fully functional version of ScanMagic application for handling wide variety of Earth remote sensing data.

Please be reminded that in October 2006 a ScanEx RDC-produced space data receiving station Alice-SC was commissioned in Nigeria National Centre for Remote Sensing. The National Centre for Remote Sensing, Jos, Nigeria is one of the divisions of the National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA with the headquarters in the country’s capital city Abudja.

Several years ago Nigeria adopted the 25-year long plan for space research and development. In 2003 a Russian rocket orbited the first Nigerian Earth remote sensing satellite NigeriaSat-1. Images with resolution up to 32 meters and scene size of 600 х 600 km are received at the NASRDA Data Processing Centre in Abudja. The plan is to launch the second Earth remote sensing satellite NigeriaSat-2 in the early 2010, which will downlink data with spatial resolution up to 2.5 m.

Additional information concerning development of Russian and foreign space technologies in the sphere of satellite imagery will be available on December 1-3 at the 4th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions”. The conference will host workshops and master-classes of the leading Russian companies dedicated to space imagery capabilities. Right after the conference on December 4-6 all interested parties will be able to attend free training courses on using ScanEx software products.