Satellites Worth Building: A Problem-First Ranking of What Nigeria Should Put in Orbit Next, and Why

Nigeria has spent more than two decades in space. NigeriaSat-1 flew in 2003, the NigComSat-1 communications satellite was lost in 2008 and replaced in 2011, and NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X are now past their design lives. Yet the country still floods, still loses harvests and still has millions of people beyond mobile coverage. This study asks a simple question: if Nigeria could build only a few satellites in the next decade, which ones would save the most lives and help the most people? Five candidate missions are compared on lives protected, people reached, cost, local build potential and whether the data is already free from others. The ranking puts small store-and-forward communication satellites for unconnected communities first, followed by radar satellites that see floods and crops through cloud. A national geostationary weather satellite comes last, because Europe's Meteosat already serves Africa freely.