Houston, Cape Canaveral, and now ... Mullingar. The recent launch of the European Space Agency (ESA) Phi-Lab Ireland, the country’s first ESA applied innovation platform, will see the Midlands become a hotbed of activity in advanced materials and manufacturing – and bring this disruptive research to the point of commercialisation.
Seminal moments like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, or the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle, are forever etched in the brains of those who were alive to witness them. But in 2026, space travel has become increasingly democratised, opening a gap in the market that Ireland has shown it is more than ready to delve into. Much like in other areas where Ireland punches above its weight, the overarching vision is that focused, high-value innovation can have an outsize impact within the European space ecosystem.
The opening of Ireland’s ESA Phi-Lab at its headquarters at Irish Manufacturing Research’s (IMR) Advanced Manufacturing facility in Mullingar, came as part of a wider Government plan to commit €170 million to the ESA over the next five years, as Ireland attempts to harness its well-established expertise in technology, engineering and manufacturing to enter the new space race and achieve tangible industrial outcomes.
Barry Kennedy, chief executive of IMR, points out that while Ireland was in fact one of the first countries to sign up to the ESA back in the 1970s, we have neglected to exploit our rich heritage in astronomy and astrophysics. In recent years, however, we are looking skyward once again.
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“It just so happens that this intersection has come at a very interesting time when, in the past, work in space was the privilege of governments and more so the big governments like, the US government or Russia.” Now, the space sector is growing exponentially. “If you go back, say, seven years ago, there were only 60 companies, and now there are more than 120 recorded companies in the space sector in Ireland. The market has opened up, and entrepreneurs can get into the game.” This steep growth has coincided with the roll-out of Ireland’s first ever National Space Strategy for Enterprise, published in 2019.
The goal of ESA Phi-Lab, which will operate in partnership with the Amber Centre at Trinity College Dublin, is to provide Irish space and “space adjacent enterprises” with a practical pathway to develop and test next generation space optimised hardware. “We have a situation where businesses can start to engage in this and make components themselves, get it shipped off into space and have a commercial product that they can make a profit on,” Kennedy says. “These are high-end, highly specialised component parts that we are building today that will survive in space.”
“IMR is a high TRL [technology readiness level] organisation, which means we don’t typically deal with blue sky research,” says Ken Horan, director of technology innovation and entrepreneurship at IMR and head of ESA Phi-Lab Ireland. IMR, in other words, only gets involved with the high impact stuff. “Over the last 24 months, and in particular since the growth of organisations like SpaceX and other commercial operations in space, the market has become a lot more real in terms of its actual economic impact.”
The Irish Phi-Lab is one of a network of 10 Phi-Labs that cover the entire technology development cycle as ESA seeks to crystallise and futureproof Europe’s long-held ambitions in space. Ireland’s role in this is ready to take off.
“Building on Ireland’s first National Space Strategy for Enterprise and following Ireland’s largest to date financial commitment to ESA last November – over €170 million over the period 2026-2030 - this signals that we are committed to expanding and deepening our involvement in European space activities,” a spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) told Business Ireland.
“This ambitious level of funding will enable Irish companies - both currently space active companies and newcomers to the space sector - to win competitive contracts with ESA. Companies active in the upstream and downstream space sectors will have greater opportunities to engage in RD&I [research, development and innovation] activities, supporting the development and commercialisation of new technologies and services.”
The winners of the first competitive seed funding call for the Phi-Lab were Mbryonics of Galway, and Ubotica Technologies of Dublin, and the second open call has already gone out. Irish companies who engage with Phi-Lab will benefit enormously from IMR’s expertise and facilities - gaining access to expert mentorship and training programmes, state-of-the-art research infrastructure, networking opportunities as well as significant seed funding for projects up to 24 months in duration, explains the ESA Phi-Lab Ireland manager, Robert Conway-Kenny.
“For example, Mbryonics, what they’re attempting to do is essentially build the internet in space,” Conway-Kenny explains. “They’re going to build optical laser telescopes for satellite-satellite communication at data rates that you just simply can’t do at present, and then also between satellites and ground stations. So, if the world is going to launch 70,000 new satellites in 10 years, then you need to think of all the communication pieces between those satellites and ground stations.”
Huge order volumes mean the sector needs to solve a technical bottleneck. “And this project within Phi-Lab is going to do that by moving away from the standard milling approach that they use to build their technologies and move to additive manufacturing (3D printing). That’s a very exciting area and something that IMR is well set up to support. We essentially co-solve that problem for them, but we take no IP.”
Meanwhile, Ubotica is enabling satellites with AI to make them capable of Earth observation, essentially turning them into smart satellites. All Irish companies with strong capabilities in areas such as advanced materials, manufacturing, robotics, and AI are being encouraged to apply for the open funding calls.
The thinking is that this type of disruptive research will ultimately have a “trickle down” effect, becoming commercially realised on Earth, as well as in space. “Like with the original space programme, technologies developed to solve particular problem statements in space can then be redeployed into terrestrial markets,” Horan explains. “It’s the same rationale that BMW invests in Formula One, it’s not because they want to win Formula One necessarily, but that technology trickle down means that they can deploy it into their fleets of road cars. We know that once the technology has been developed and de-risked for the space application, there are often terrestrial applications to which it can be redeployed, so further advancing that commercial story.”
The Phi-Lab initially runs as a six-year programme, but Kennedy says it’s just the beginning of Ireland playing a pivotal role in this crucial sector. “It’s absolutely only the start, and it has enabled us to work closely with the European Space Agency, and really deeply understand the challenges, understand what it is we can do here, what our company base can do, and then help this to rapidly grow,” he says. “The space sector is growing exponentially, but I see Ireland growing at that same exponential rate, even faster over the next few years.”
“We are committed to expanding and deepening our involvement in European Space activities,” says a spokesperson for DETE.
Conway-Kenny believes that the launch of Phi-Lab will serve as a “catalyst” for the sector in Ireland, bringing in companies who never thought about space as an option for their technology. Spreading the word on Ireland’s role in the burgeoning space sector is crucial, he adds.
“The chat in the global space sector is that the disruption space is going to bring about is equivalent to what AI is doing, but AI is tactile ... people already have AI, they have it on their phones and they’re seeing the speed of progress in real time, whereas space is the technology development behind Europe having the most successful and most accurate global navigation system, for example. It’s all happening, but with space, people are one step removed, so they aren’t necessarily witnessing the disruption that’s happening.”
Horan agrees. “Companies have to start thinking about this now. Because when it becomes visible, it’ll likely be too late. The leaders will have been established.”
