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Ireland’s first ever Satellite to be launched

Written by Robert McHugh, on 24th May 2017. Posted in Technology

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The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced the selection of the EIRSAT-1 satellite, led by University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, in partnership with five Irish companies to develop, launch and operate a Cubesat to be launched from the International Space Station.  

This will be Ireland’s first ever satellite and is being developed under the ESA Education Office “Fly Your Satellite” ! 2017 Programme. 

The EIRSAT-1 mission will advance education in space science and engineering across the whole island of Ireland through collaboration between student teams, higher education institutions and high-tech companies. The mission will enable participants to develop know-how in space science and engineering and address skills shortages in the space sector.  

A key objective of the mission is to inspire the next generation of students to study STEM subjects through an outreach programme developed by Blackrock Castle Observatory and Cork Institute of Technology. 

The intention is that EIRSAT-1 will be launched and delivered to the International Space Station and will then be launched into orbit from the ISS having passed ESA’s stringent requirements.  The satellite will orbit the Earth gathering data for approximately 12 months and will be managed and controlled from University College Dublin. A ground station in the School of Physics at UCD will allow commands to be uplinked via UHF radio and data to be downlinked via VHF radio from the spacecraft.

Commenting on the project, Programme Manager at Moog Dublin and Team Leader for EIRSAT-1, Dr Ronan Wall said, "The overall European Space market was worth €7.5 Billion Euro in 2015 and has provided recession-proof year-on-year growth for decades. Moog Dublin is delighted to support UCD and Queen’s University Belfast in this student programme which will help train some of the future workforce for the Space industry in Ireland."

He added, "Irish Space exports are estimated at €80 million in 2016 - providing at least 4:1 return on State investment in ESA – and we believe that this project will help us take that return to the next level by producing highly skilled workers to meet the export market opportunities."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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