Nigerian Satellite Augmentation System (NSAS)

The Nigerian Satellite Augmentation System (NSAS) is a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) designed to provide a navigation overlay service for the African continent and beyond. Similar to the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), NSAS aims to enhance the Continuity, Availability, Integrity, and Accuracy of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals. It achieves this by generating differential corrections for GNSS signals and broadcasting these integrity messages as an augmented signal on the L1 and L5 frequencies globally via the NigComSat-1R satellite, ensuring wide coverage. This capability makes NSAS suitable for critical applications such as Aviation, Maritime navigation, Public Safety, and improving the effectiveness of Location-based Services for Emergencies and Crisis management. NIGCOMSAT’s mission with NSAS is to deliver safe and precise satellite-based augmentation services, offering significant value for productivity across Africa and globally. The service is intended to provide highly precise navigation and positioning for public safety, various transportation sectors, geographic information systems, and the security of critical national infrastructure, operating through a mix of free and controlled market access. Strategic application areas include Transportation (Aviation, Maritime, Rail, Road & Inland Waterways), the Oil and Gas Sector, Civil Engineering, Survey, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Public Safety, Disaster Preparedness, Security of strategic national infrastructure, Utility Management, High yield agricultural practice, Tourism Promotion, Environmental Protection, and Scientific Research. The signal-in-space (SIS) with Pseudo Random Noise (PRN) Code 147 is currently undergoing test bed experimentation and trials to characterize and validate its performance parameters.