UCD’s Centre for Space Research (UCD C-Space), has been granted funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) to lead a technical project aimed at developing a CubeSat swarm with novel capabilities for observing extremely powerful events in space known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
COMCUBE-S will use a satellite swarm which is a coordinated network of many small satellites, known as CubeSats, operating together in orbit. The swarm enables rapid, multi-angle observations of short-lived space phenomena and improves the ability to measure polarisation, which is a key property of gamma-ray bursts that can help reveal how these violent events produce such a phenomenal amount of energy - more than the Sun’s entire output over its 5 billion year lifetime is released in a matter of seconds.
By delivering faster and more detailed information about these phenomena, the mission will support scientists in making new discoveries about the nature and origins of GRBs which were discovered almost 60 years ago. The project follows ESA’s established In-Orbit Demonstration process and begins with a so-called Phase A study, which assesses the mission’s technical feasibility.
(Pictured: The COMCUBE-S team was one of two successful teams in the SysNova Challenge at ESA's technical centre ESTEC in April 2024).
The project is conducted by a consortium of four institutes and one industry partner, led by Dr David Murphy (pictured above, third from right), Research Fellow in UCD School of Physics and UCD C-Space. He said: "Pooling together data from the many satellites in the swarm will improve performance, while the multi-point observations ensure we see all of the sky, all of the time. The award of this contract to UCD C-Space recognises our space heritage, allowing us to combine our expertise gained from ESA Science missions with our capability from EIRSAT-1. This ambitious mission concept also underlines the key role that fundamental research plays in driving innovation in the Irish and European space sectors.”
UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact, Prof Kate Robson Brown said: "We are very proud to announce this ambitious new project from UCD C-Space, the university's Centre for Space Research that has developed leading expertise nationally and in Europe in CubeSat and payload technology for high energy astrophysics. UCD continues to be a driver of research and innovation in space technology and applications, a driver of the Irish space sector, and we commend the C-Space team for their commitment to engaging with industry to explore new concepts and solutions."
COMCUBE-S was selected from a competitive process called the SysNova Challenge, entitled 'Innovative Mission Concepts Enabled by Swarms of CubeSats', and is supported through ESA’s Discovery and Preparation programme. It was one of two successful projects out of seven presented in April 2024 at ESA's technical centre ESTEC, where over 30 participants from a range of research institutions and space companies across Europe came together to share innovative ideas on how CubeSat swarms can revolutionise space technology.
UCD C-Space has partnered with Scottish space company AAC Space Clyde who are responsible for system design in the project’s initial phase and serve as the industry partner in the first delivery. Consortium partners also include Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab), France, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), France, and Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), Sweden.
The projects that the Preparation element of ESA's Basic Activities supported under the SysNova Challenge came out of an Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) campaign (for ideas for Innovative Mission Concepts Enabled by Swarms of CubeSats). OSIP is now the main entry point for novel ideas into ESA, both in response to specific problems and through open calls for ideas, to serve the emerging needs of the modern space sector.
In its description of COMCUBE-S, ESA has highlighted UCD C-Space’s previous experience developing the GMOD (Gamma-ray Module) on Ireland’s first satellite, EIRSAT-1, which demonstrated the feasibility of CubeSat-based GRB detectors, as well as the industry and academic teams having ‘a strong record of collaboration on EIRSAT-1.’