Nigeria launches 2 new satellites

According to authorities, they hoped to use the equipment to monitor weather in a region seasonally ravaged by disasters.Nigeria launched NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X into orbit Wednesday morning from a Russian launch pad in the town of Yasny, President Goodluck Jonathan said on state-run television.He described the event as “another milestone in our nations effort to solve national problems through space technology.” The satellites could have a variety of applications, authorities said, which include monitoring disaster-prone areas in a country that stretches into Africas Sahel, a belt of land on the Sahara Deserts southern fringe that sees extreme weather conditions. It experiences severe droughts in the dry season and devastating rainfall in the wet season. Floods last year displaced about 500,000 people nationwide, with most of them in the Sahel region.Authorities said NigeriaSat-2 can detect anything wider than 8.2 feet, such as cars. That means the satellites also could be used for military and intelligence purposes.