The Second United Nations Conference on Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE ’82) held in 1982 in Vienna, Austria; recommended that the United Nations Program on Space Applications (UN-PSA) should focus its attention, inter alia, on the development of indigenous capabilities in Space Science and Technology at the local level. The United Nations General Assembly (GA) endorsed the recommendation in its resolution 37/90 of 10th December, 1982.

The GA in its resolution 45/72 of 11th December, 1990, also endorsed the recommendation of Committee On Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, (COPUOS) that the United Nations should lead, with the active support of its specialized agencies and other international organizations, an international effort to establish Regional Centers for Space Science and Technology Education in existing national/regional educational institutions in the developing countries (A/AC.105/456, annex II, Para 4 [n]). In various United Nations documents, A/AC.105/498 of 1992 and A/AC.105/534 of 1993, the Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) outlined a number of steps to translate the GA resolutions mentioned above into operational programs. In a statement on the 15th of September, 1995, by UNOOSA, Nigeria was chosen to host, for the benefit of Anglophone countries, the African Regional Center for Space Science and Technology Education in English (ARCSSTE-E).

On the 24th of November, 1998, ARCSSTE-E was formally inaugurated to execute the United Nations’ mandate of capacity building in SST at the postgraduate level. Also, in 1999, the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) was established to pursue the development and application of SST for the socio-economic benefits of the nation. To achieve part of its enormous objectives, NASRDA set up the Center for Space Science and Technology Education (CSSTE) as an activity centre to create awareness, sensitize, mobilize and educate the generality of Nigerians on the benefits of SST through schools’ outreach activities.