EIRSAT-1 Ireland’s First Satellite

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  • EIRSAT-1 has been selected to participate in ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! educational programme for university students, placing space flight know-how into Irish students’ hands for the first time.
  • EIRSAT-1 will gather data on Gamma-Ray Bursts and will test innovative Irish space technologies.
  • University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast are leading the ESA-backed mission,   in partnership with five Irish companies.
  • Mission will inspire the next generation to study STEM subjects.
  • EIRSAT-1 will be launched from the International Space Station, subject to successfully passing reviews by ESA.
  • The ESA Education office will support the EIRSAT-1 team through all stages of the design, build, test and launch of the satellite.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the selection of the EIRSAT-1 satellite, led by University College Dublin with Queen’s University Belfast, for the second edition of the Fly Your Satellite!  Programme, along with CubeSats from five other European universities.

Following a call on 20 December 2016, eight student teams, shortlisted from all applications submitted to ESA, presented their CubeSat missions at a selection workshop at the European Space Research & Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands in the first week of May.

Mission evaluation and selection were carried out by a CubeSat Evaluation Panel, consisting of ESA experts from a range of disciplines.

Minister Halligan welcomed the announcement stating that “as Ireland has never launched a satellite of its own this mission represents a first for the island of Ireland and a giant leap for the Irish Space Sector and will be of enormous interest to the entire community.” Congratulating the project teams from University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, Minister Halligan expressed his expectation that “the project will have a significant impact on educational programmes and future skills by placing space flight know-how into students’ hands for the first time. This is an incredibly exciting project with great potential to have significant impact beyond those directly participating in the project, including the expanding space industry sector in Ireland.”

According to Prof. Lorraine Hanlon of UCD’s School of Physics and lead Professor on the project “this success has been made possible through sustained support from Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland and ESA, combined with a team of outstanding students at undergraduate and graduate level in space science, physics and engineering, who will have to work extremely hard to pass the ESA reviews and make the dream of this satellite mission come true. Our students will have an amazing opportunity to learn, not only from the wealth of expertise at ESA, but also from the other excellent teams participating in the programme from across Europe*. This hard work  will prepare them very well for future careers in the space sector.”

The systems engineer is David Murphy, a PhD student in the UCD Space Science group, who says that   “Working on EIRSAT-1 is an unprecedented opportunity for Irish students. When I started my PhD I hoped that I’d be helping to push forward the design of a gamma-ray detector that might someday fly in space. I never expected that as a student I’d be responsible for flying that detector on Ireland’s first satellite!”

The launch of an Irish CubeSat also reflects the ambition of the Irish Space Industry Group (ISIG) who recognised the importance of developing heritage to enable growth in the space sector in Ireland. ISIG Chair, Danny Gleeson, welcomed the announcement: “The Irish Space Industry Group is delighted with the selection by ESA of the UCD-led satellite EIRSAT-1 to proceed to the next phase of the Fly Your Satellite! 2 Programme. The EIRSAT-1 mission is a fantastic opportunity to develop the skills and experience necessary to support sustainable growth in the Irish space sector and provide inspiration to young people to choose an exciting career in space science and engineering.”

EIRSAT-1 – Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 – is a collaborative space project, developed by students and staff of University College Dublin (UCD) and Queen’s University Belfast, which will provide training and education for graduates and undergraduate students in all major aspects of satellite development, under expert guidance from academic and industry mentors and ESA. The project is supported by a number of industrial partners including Resonate Testing, ENBIO, SensL, Parameter Space and Nammo Dublin.

Dr Ronan Wall, Programme Manager at Nammo Dublin and Team Leader for EIRSAT-1 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. Nammo Dublin are 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.  Space contributed €76M to the Irish economy in 2015 – 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 for what is the ultimate export market.”

EIRSAT-1 will include two different payloads on a 2 Unit CubeSat. Both payloads contain technology from the industrial partners that will be flown in space for the first time, marking an important step in their space heritage. The payloads for EIRSAT-1 have been made possible through funding by ESA technology programmes including the Science Core Technology Programme.

Dr. Gasser Abdelal of Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and lead structure engineer, remarked that this is “One remarkable step for academic staff on the project, and one giant leap for our aerospace degree students”

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 in partnership with Blackrock Castle Observatory/CIT.

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, subject to EIRSAT-1 passing 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.

The activities on the development of the satellite will be performed with the support of the ESA Education Office in the frame of the Fly Your Satellite! 2 programme.

Hugo Marée, Head of the ESA Education & Knowledge Management Office stated:  “Thanks to the support given to ESA’s Education Programme by all the Delegations at the last Council at Ministerial Level, the Education Office has been in a position to reinforce its capability to offer more frequent CubeSat-related opportunities to university teams, including to those who never participated in  previous editions of its educational CubeSat programme. We are therefore delighted to welcome the student-built EIRSAT-1, Ireland’s first ever satellite, in the Fly Your Satellite! 2 programme. We truly look forward to supporting the development of the project by sharing ESA expertise and standard practices with the students.’’

Commenting on the success of the Consortium Minister Halligan noted that “the consortium’s success reflects the great advances that have been made by Ireland’s Universities and Industry in recent years and is part of an ongoing rapid expansion of the Irish space sector. The knowledge and experienced gained from developing and operating this satellite will contribute greatly to Ireland’s strategy for the space sector”

Prof Hanlon said that “Although the UCD Space Science group works on fundamental research questions in astrophysics, the technology we have developed has wider applications in space,   medicine and security. We can never really imagine when we start new research projects where our ideas will take us – that is especially true in this case! Despite its small size, EIRSAT-1 will detect the biggest explosions since the Big Bang and pave the way for future space science missions.”

*The six selected teams to proceed in the Fly Your Satellite! 2 programme are:

3Cat-4 – University Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain

CELESTA – University of Montpellier, France

EIRSAT-1 – UCD & Queen’s University Belfast
ISTnanosat-1 –  Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal

LEDSAT – La Sapienza – University of Rome in Italy

UoS3 – University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

HAPS4ESA – Towards an ESA Stratospheric High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) programme

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ESA has announced a workshop entitled “Towards an ESA Stratospheric High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) programme for Earth Observation, Telecommunications and Navigation”, to be held in ESTEC on 9-10 October 2017 and co-organised by EOP, TIA and NAV.

The meeting’s objective is to identify potential synergies between High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS) and satellites in the domains of Earth Observation, Telecommunication and Navigation. Based on the technologies and applications presented, the European Space Agency will decide on potential demonstration projects. The workshop discussion and recommendations will support the European Space Agency in identifying needs, opportunities and criticalities for the preparation of an ESA programme for HAPS, as needed, as well as in providing substantial input for its definition.

Participation is open to all interested representatives of industry (manufacturers, technology providers, operators, service providers), science, academia, regulatory bodies, policy makers, as well data users, who are invited to register on:

http://esaconferencebureau.com/2017-events/17m20

Please note the section of the registration form dealing with abstract submission.

EOEP5-BLOCK 4 Industry Day

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Meeting Date 12th May 2017, 09h30-13h00
Meeting Place ESRIN: Big Hall
DRAFT AGENDA
9:30 Welcome coffee
10:00 Welcome By ESA
10:15 Introduction of the overall EOEP 5 Block 4
10:30 Scientific Exploitation
11:00 Exploitation Platforms
• Public Benefit
• Industry Growth
• Common architecture
• Network of Platforms
• Evolving new capabilities
12:00 Sustainable Development
12:15 Block 4 Open Call Mechanism
12:30 Question/Answer Session
13:00 Lunch
14:00 to 16:00 Meeting & Networking opportunity

Please contact national EO delegate at Enterprise Ireland for more information. This event is open to all companies interested in participating.

Curtiss-Wright Selected by ELV to Provide Cost-Effective Telemetry System for the European Space Agency’s New Vega-C Launcher

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Minister Halligan Congratulates Curtiss-Wright, Dublin on €4.5M ESA Contract – the Largest Ever Awarded to an Irish-based Operation 

DUBLIN, Ireland – 8th February 2017 — Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division today announced that its Ireland-based facility has been selected by Italy’s ELV SpA (Avio Group), the prime contractor on the Vega-C Launcher System and GPM Development and Qualification Program for the European Space Agency (ESA), to provide a COTS-based telemetry data system for the new launcher.  At €4.5M, this is the largest ESA related contract ever awarded to an Irish based operation. The confidence placed in Curtiss-Wright by the award of this contract establishes the Dublin operation as one of the world leaders in the use of COTS electronics equipment in critical space applications and raises the profile of Ireland’s space industry in the global space marketplace. The announcement was made during a visit to Curtiss-Wright’s Dublin facility by John Halligan T.D. Minister for Training and Skills, where he congratulated the team involved saying; “This is a significant achievement by an Irish based operation working at the cutting edge of space technologies. This contract award demonstrates how Irish operations, such as Curtiss-Wright’s facility in Dublin, are developing technologies to the highest levels of performance and reliability for the European space program. These technologies have the potential to lead to increased sales in the global market and the creation of high value jobs in Irish operations in line with the Government’s strategy for Ireland’s membership of ESA.”  The mid-sized Vega-C is designed to deliver government, commercial, and science payloads weighing three tons or less, such as small satellite constellations to low-earth orbit. As this market is especially cost sensitive, ESA’s goal is for the Vega-C launcher to serve as a next-generation launch vehicle that is able to support the same or greater mission objectives as the original Vega launcher, but at reduced cost. Curtiss-Wright’s cost-effective COTS electronics systems approach was selected to support this challenging performance/cost target.  This agreement represents the first use of Curtiss-Wright’s groundbreaking radiation tolerant Smart Backplane technology on a European launch vehicle. Under the contract, Curtiss-Wright will provide ELV with a full telemetry system, including data acquisition, data handling, and RF transmission. The Vega-C development contract runs from January 2017 until first launch in June 2019, with a value estimated at €4.5 million. The value of the subsequent production phase is estimated at more than €10 million over the lifetime of the program.  “We are very excited about being selected by ELV to provide our cost-effective Space COTS telemetry system for use on the Vega-C, especially as this is our first avionics design win on a European launcher,” said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Defense Solutions division. “Our unique Smart Backplane technology enables radiation tolerant electronics to be used in many applications across many market sectors, allowing lower cost COTS modules to be reliably used in harsh space environments.” The Vega-C rocket will be launched from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. ESA’s requirement for Vega-C flights include a nominal of three launches per year, with expected demand for at least four per year. Curtiss-Wright will develop and manufacture the telemetry system for Vega-C at its facilities in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland’s industrial and research participation in the programs of ESA is coordinated by Enterprise Ireland in collaboration with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Additional EI client companies that will support Curtiss-Wright as sub-suppliers on this program include Schivo and Realtime Technologies. Dr. Bryan Rodgers, speaking on behalf of Enterprise Ireland’s ESA Delegation, welcomed the successful contract, saying, “Curtiss-Wright’s Dublin-based operation is one of a rapidly growing number of Irish operations working, with the support of the ESA and Enterprise Ireland, on high profile space programs such as the new Vega-C launcher development and opportunities in the expanding global commercial space market.”

For more information on Curtiss-Wright’s experience in space programs, please visit www.curtisswrightds.com/space.

About Curtiss-Wright Corporation

Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a global innovative company that delivers highly engineered, critical function products and services to the commercial, industrial, defense and energy markets. Building on the heritage of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradition of providing reliable solutions through trusted customer relationships. The company employs approximately 8,400 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.curtisswright.com.

The European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities. Today it launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space. www.esa.int

Enterprise Ireland, managing Ireland’s membership of the European Space Agency

Enterprise Ireland co-ordinates Ireland’s industrial and research participation in the programmes of the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

The purpose of Ireland’s membership of ESA is to participate in European space programmes with a focus on facilitating innovative Irish operations to develop leading edge space technologies and to commercially exploit their ESA participation in global space and non-space markets, leading to increased export sales and employment.

Enterprise Ireland’s role in relation to ESA is to assist Irish operations to successfully bid for ESA contracts, providing expertise for Irish operations and researchers in developing and executing space strategies, as well as being a point of reference for the international space industry when they want to identify relevant sources of space-related expertise within Ireland.

Irish industrial and research participation in ESA covers a range of sectors and technology areas including; software, precision mechanical engineering, telecommunications, electronics, optoelectronics and advanced materials and extending to end user equipment, services and applications.

Contact:   John Wranovics

M: 925.640.6402

jwranovics@curtisswright.com

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