IRISH TECHNOLOGY firms are reaching for the stars in their search for profit, winning contracts worth €11 million from the European Space Agency (Esa) in 2007, almost double the value of space-tech business won the previous year.

Tech firms are being encouraged to take further small steps for mankind at a three-day space industry Skillnets training course taking place this weekend.

Officials from Esa, including the head of the agency's small business unit, are in Dublin to advise firms on how to submit research-funding proposals and contract bids to the agency, the body which describes itself as "Europe's gateway to space".

Danny Gleeson, the Skillnets promoter, said that the Government was getting back its €13 million a year investment in the space agency "two to three times over". Commercial space technology was "one of the few areas of growth in the global technology marketplace", he said.

Mr Gleeson, a physicist with 20 years' experience in the space industry worldwide, said that there was a "huge undercurrent of space-related revenue", running into tens of billions, in addition to Esa's €2 billion budget and national space programmes.

This is the third space industry Skillnets training programme and it has a budget of €500,000 for 2008/09. European space firms are also taking part, which doubles as a networking event for small Irish firms.

Irish-based companies involved in the space industry include EireComposites in Galway, which manufactures thermoplastic components for use in space launchers and satellites; Betatherm, which supplies thermal control products to Esa; and Marotta Ireland, which supplies structural supports for the engine used in Esa's launch vehicle Ariane V.

Tony McDonald, head of the Esa programme at Enterprise Ireland, said that winning agency contracts had massive spin-off potential. Enterprise Ireland has estimated that Irish firms generated annual spin-off sales of more than €25 million from technology developed for use in space.