Eirsat-1, the first fully Irish-designed satellite, was built by UCD staff and students as part of an educational programme by the European Space Agency. It is set to fall out of orbit this week and disintegrate in the atmosphere, marking the culmination of a pioneering UCD-led project that has nurtured a generation of home-grown space experts now working in industry.
The satellite was built by UCD staff and students, as part of the ‘Fly Your Satellite’ educational programme by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched on December 1, 2023, onboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and entered its low Earth orbit later the same day.
Credit: Third Party Reference
“Our students have learned incredible skills,” said Professor Lorraine Hanlon, head of the UCD Space Technology Group, a research team focused on spacecraft and space technology.
Several of them are now working in Irish space companies, and researchers are now collaborating with them on new projects. If approved, this would see Ireland at the forefront of complex space science missions. The EIRSAT-1 is about the size of a shoebox, has an aluminium body, is fitted with solar panels on all sides, and features a gamma-ray detection experiment. Its success has been “transformational, not just for UCD, but for the country.
One impact of Eirsat-1 is that it led to an Irish proposal to develop 28 spacecraft with gamma ray instruments now being considered by ESA. If approved, this would see Ireland at the forefront of complex space science missions in the coming decade. It’s been great for us on the astrophysics side. Researchers have taken an idea that we had more than 10 years ago, and gone from that basic idea to a fully space-qualified, successfully operating space instrument.
Credit: Third Party Reference
Scientists are building up capabilities for next-generation satellite communications. The success has also transformed the space-based SMEs now located in Galway, Cork, Dublin and elsewhere around Ireland and given them the confidence to take the lead in space technologies.
“We are building up capabilities for next-generation satellite communications, using high-speed links provided by big lasers,” Prof Hanlon said.
That’s going to be a big breakthrough because in space, an issue is the limited bandwidth available to download a huge volume of data produced using certain applications. Irish companies are looking at ways to use technology to sift and analyse data gathered by the satellite before determining what needs to be downloaded at any particular time. People are using AI on board the satellite to be more efficient, clever, and more responsive to the data they send out.
The UCD team has been monitoring the satellite as its altitude has steadily declined over recent weeks. Once it drops down below about 300km, it will start to burn up and vaporise. It’ll completely burn up in the atmosphere; it’s not going to land on anything.
