Ireland’s first space mission set for lift-off after deal with European agency

Ireland’s first space mission has reached a “huge milestone” with the signing of an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to facilitate the launch of the Eirsat-1 satellite next year, the project’s director has said.

Prof Lorraine Hanlon of University College Dublin also said there were “plenty of ideas” for possible future missions and how Ireland could “capitalise on all of the skills, knowledge facilities that have been developed so far”. A larger satellite that will build on the work of Eirsat-1 and proposals around space weather monitoring are among possible future projects being developed at UCD.

A member of the Eirsat-1 team, PhD student Rachel Dunwoody, outlined how the name of the small spacecraft stands for Educational Irish Research Satellite and, among other capabilities, it includes a gamma ray detector for examining exploding stars.

She said the researchers were currently conducting a simulation of how the satellite would operate in space and the team hoped to be working on the mission for five years.

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Prof Orla Feely, UCD’s vice-president for research, innovation and impact, said Ireland had strengths in areas such as electronics, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and data analytics “so we see huge opportunity for Ireland to play a major role in space science and earth observation”.

They were speaking after Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister of State for Business Damien English signed an exchange of letters with the ESA to facilitate the launch of Eirsat-1.

Mr Varadkar said it was “a big moment for the Irish space sector” given it would be the country’s first mission into space.

“It has huge spin off potential for Irish businesses and universities,” he said.

Mr English outlined how Ireland has contributed more than €300 million to the ESA over the last two decades and is increasing the funding to the agency by another €1.5 million next year. “Generally any money we put in we get back [through] companies winning contracts that then create jobs.”

The launch window for Eirsat-1 from the ESA facility in French Guiana is between January 20th and February 20th, 2023. The Irish spacecraft is to be included along with a rocket payload of satellites from other European countries, subject to final testing and ESA approval.