News & Events

University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, and University of Strathclyde, Scotland, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to foster collaboration between the two institutions in research areas of space-related activity. The signing took place at the Scotland-Ireland space innovation conference in Glasgow from 26th-27th February 2025. 

The MoU includes research and innovation projects and student exchange in space-related activities including the net-zero transition; rural, coastal, and island communities; life science, space, and microbiology; as well as other projects, meetings and workshops in fields of mutual interest that may arise in the future.

The MoU aligns with the  (opens in a new window)Ireland-Scotland Joint Bilateral Review   which was jointly published by the two countries to explore cooperation and collaboration on shared objectives, including the support of structured research collaboration to harness expertise and enhance existing research and innovation networks.

(Pictured L-R: Dr Paul Bate, CEO of the UK Space Agency, Prof Stephen McArthur, Prof Malcolm Macdonald, University of Strathclyde, Prof Kate Robson Brown, University College Dublin, Dr Patricia Moore, Irish Space Association, Dr Alice Bunn OBE, Chief executive officer of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the former International Director at the UK Space Agency, Prof Lorraine Hanlon, University College Dublin)

On signing the MoU, UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact, Professor Kate Robson Brown said: “We are in a new space era, witnessing an acceleration in large-scale space missions that offer vast opportunities for research and innovation, both in fundamental science and many applied domains such as materials development, robotics, AI/data and health and life sciences. Perhaps even more importantly though, modern life in our societies is increasingly underpinned by in-orbit services and it is important for small nations like Ireland to take an interest in the development of this sector. Scotland provides a great example of how to carve out niches in the space sector with vast economic and societal benefits. I am delighted to forge this partnership with University of Strathclyde and strengthen our relationship with such a valued ally in the space industry and beyond, which will benefit our research, innovation and education programmes and help to build the talent pipelines to sustain current and future development in the sector.”

Professor Stephen McArthur, Associate Principal and Executive Dean of Engineering at University of Strathclyde said: “Scotland is a prime example of how collaboration and partnership can grow a strong space industry and space research. At the University of Strathclyde, we take great pride in playing a key role in the growth of Scotland’s vibrant space sector, and we are honoured to support UCD in shaping Ireland's sector in a similar way. Strengthening ties between Scottish and Irish institutions can only help foster innovation and expand research, furthering the potential of the sector to contribute to major global objectives.”

Central to the relationship is the UCD C-Space Center, Ireland’s leading centre for interdisciplinary collaborative space-related research, innovation and education. Director of UCD C-Space and Professor of Astronomy at UCD School of Physics, (opens in a new window)Professor Lorraine Hanlon said: “With the advent of small satellites and cheaper launches, researchers and companies in Ireland can build innovative missions for scientific research and develop technologies that use satellites for the benefit of society. As we advance Ireland’s space research and innovation, we take inspiration from Scotland’s successes.”

UCD is also host organisation of the National Space Subsystems and Payloads Initiative (NSSPI), advancing space technology development through collaboration, expertise, and research, in partnership with industry including Réaltra, Ubotica, Altera, mBryonics, Equal1 and ÉireComposites. Director of NSSPI and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, (opens in a new window)Dr David McKeown said: “As Ireland continues to expand its capabilities in space technology development through projects like the NSSPI, forging strong alliances with other small nations that have successfully established themselves in this sector is invaluable for our researchers and companies. We look forward to strengthening this partnership and exploring new opportunities for collaboration."

This information is provided courtesy of Niall Bolger of the Irish Delegation to the European Space Agency at Enterprise Ireland. If you have any queries please contact Niall directly at niall.bolger@enterprise-ireland.com. Image credit: EUMETSAT/ESA

• (opens in a new window)URBIS24-URBan Insights from Space 2024

The European Space Agency (ESA) will organise a workshop on urban applications, titled URBIS24-URBan Insights from Space 2024, building on the previous series of MUAS, with the aim of involving a wider user community. The workshop will be held in ESRIN, outside Rome,  on 16-18 September 2024.

The objectives are to: gather participants from different sectors, including urban experts, policy makers, remote sensing experts, academia and NGOs, in sharing knowledge, expertise and opportunities for using Earth Observation (EO) in addressing urban challenges, hence fostering new collaborations among participants; Identify challenges and priorities of urban experts and decision-makers in the context of urban planning, urban adaptation, increasing liveability, which can strongly benefit by using up to date EO integrated solutions; Explore up to date results from Remote Sensing scientists and experts and delineate new applications and R&D activities.

• (opens in a new window)EO for Africa Symposium, 2024

Location – ESRIN, Rome, 23-26 September 2024

This symposium will be organised by ESA in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC), African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE), the European Commission (EC), the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with the aims to (1) showcase latest R&D EO Science and Applications achievements relevant for the Africa continent, (2) further facilitate international EO R&D collaborations across Africa and Europe, (3) continue the user-driven process of capturing EO high-priority topics for future R&D and capacity development joint efforts, (4) share information about future EO missions and digital technology and the related opportunities, (5) discuss the challenges and opportunities to accelerate the integration of downstream services in operational solutions.

• (opens in a new window)2nd EO for Carbon Markets Forum

Following a successful first edition organised on 3-5 October 2023 in Frascati, Italy, in collaboration with key European and international entities (DG-CLIMA, DG-JRC, World Bank, BNP Paribas, Verra), a second edition is planned for Oct 2024.

This event will take place 9-11 October 2024 in Copenhagen, together with key co-organisers such as EEA and DG CLIMA, and follow an EEA-led Forestry Expert Group (8-9 October). It aims at bringing together the perspectives from various domains (e.g., AFOLU, Blue Carbon, Soils, Emissions monitoring, EU certification on Carbon Removals) and numerous key stakeholder groups such as the regulatory institutions, the credit carbon systems bodies, financial institutions, EO industry and scientists. This edition is expected to gather more than 200 people. Registration is open until 10^th September.

• (opens in a new window)3rd Workshop on International Cooperation in Spaceborne Imaging Spectroscopy

ESA will organise the 3rd Workshop on International Cooperation in Spaceborne Imaging Spectroscopy in ESTEC, 13-15 November 2024.

Building on the outcomes of the first and second editions of this Workshop in July 2019 and October 2022, and on the continuous cooperation between all involved Agencies (NASA, JPL, DLR, ASI), the main objective of this Workshop is to strengthen international coordination, synergies among current and future missions and to establish priority areas for future projects and activities. The Objectives of the workshop are to assess the status of current and planned international imaging spectroscopy missions designed for Earth surface monitoring; Identify major gaps and opportunities for the scientific and user community linked to the development of future imaging spectroscopy missions; Strengthen international cooperation and coordination in the space and ground segment operation, calibration and validation, products definition, data access and data exploitation.

• (opens in a new window)BIOSPACE25, Biodiversity Insight from Space

ESA will organise a conference on biodiversity, called BIOSPACE25, Biodiversity Insight from Space, on 10-14 February 2025 in ESRIN, Rome.

This event will be the first of its kind, fully dedicated to exploring the use of remote sensing in biodiversity science and applications. BIOSPACE25 will bring together a diverse group of participants, including ecologists, modelers, EO experts, biodiversity policy stakeholders, academics, private sector representatives, financial organisations, and NGOs. Attendees will have the opportunity to share their experiences with satellite remote sensing in various biodiversity contexts, discuss the challenges and opportunities, and collaboratively define R&D priorities in terms of scientific questions, policy needs, and knowledge and observations gaps that can be addressed through EO solutions. The conference will be organised with key stakeholders, including the CBD, IPBES, UNEP, FAO, UNSD, WWF, GEO BON, GBIF, CEOS and NASA.

Summary: 

Understanding the effects of exposure to the Lunar, Martian, and deep-space environments on biological systems and health is critical to enabling long-duration spaceflight and the horizon goal of a human mission to Mars. With this in mind, the seminar will discuss the implications of recent and ongoing research into microbiome variation across different modules of the International Space Station, of crew in an analogue Martian habitat during the longest controlled human isolation experiment conducted to-date as well as in mice on the Rodent Research 6 mission.

Speaker:

Dr Nicholas Brereton received his PhD from Imperial College London before moving to the Universite de Montreal as a research fellow before joining the UCD School of Biological and Environmental Science as an Ad Astra Fellow. He specialises in the genetics of cross-kingdom interactions in plant and environmental research, clinical microbiome research, and microbiome research within the space sciences and currently leads a multi-omic research project with NASA Genelab collaborators on spaceflight-associated changes at the host-gut microbiome interface using data from the Rodent Research 6 mission.

Seminar: March 2nd, 2023, 2pm in Room 129, UCD Science North (Physics), Belfield

European Lunar Exploration Workshop

Europe is going to the moon! In light of future exploration plans, C-Space examined our nearest neighbour through the eyes of several international experts. This workshop raised awareness of Europe’s activities and plans, addressing the motivations, challenges and opportunities presented by lunar exploration. The topics covered engineering, medicine, manufacturing, physics, astronomy, geology and industry applications. The workshop was hosted by renowned space journalist Leo Enright.

Earth Observation – €6.4M Funding Success in DTIF 3 for CAMEO

The CAMEO project, led by Assoc. Prof. Michela Bertolotto from UCD's School of Computer Science, offers a new approach to accessing international satellite/UAV/Land-based sensor data. Along with mechanisms for combining these datasets with national climate, agriculture, and marine databases, tangible benefits for Irish industry, the public sector, and researchers can be realised, while also establishing Ireland as an international leader in the use of EO data for economic, environmental and societal benefit. C-Space will lead the networking and training aspects of the project, the latter in partnership with Space Industry Skillnet. The members of this consortium, led by UCD, are Assoc. Prof. Michela Bertolotto UCD School of Computer Science; Vertice Integration Services Ltd T/A Vertice Cloud; BCC Risk Advisory Ltd T/A Edgescan; The Icon Group Ltd; Treemetrics Ltd; TechWorks Marine Ltd; EMC Information Systems International and Oracle Corporation Ltd.

ESA Space Solutions Centre Ireland @ UCD

NovaUCD has joined the ESA Space Solutions Centre Ireland (ESA SSCI) consortium to better support entrepreneurs and start-ups in the space industry. This national consortium is led by the Tyndall National Institute and funded by ESA and Enterprise Ireland.

Eligible start-ups which successfully apply to locate at NovaUCD through ESA SSCI  will be able to avail of support provided through the ESA BIC network alongside the support programmes and activities provided by NovaUCD. These companies also receive €50,000 project funding for development of their enterprise.

NovaUCD has already supported several space active companies, including ENBIO, O.C.E. Technology, ProvEye and PlasmaBound.

The spacecraft Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) continues to undergo extensive testing in UCD’s spacecraft assembly clean-room. Following completion of this phase, it will undergo an environmental test campaign later in the year at ESA ESEC’s Cubesat Test Facility in Redu, Belgium, pandemic-restrictions permitting. It has been an immensely challenging year for laboratory work, but the team has once again shown their amazing resilience, creativity and innovation in creating remote working solutions to keep the project moving forward. The EQM is an exact duplicate of the Flight Model and is used to retire major technical risks. The EQM will stay in UCD after launch, allowing us to troubleshoot any issues and test out new software before uplinking it to the spacecraft. Team members, all of whom are students, have been preparing technical papers on various aspects of the mission and presenting their work at (opens in a new window)SpaceOps 2021, the (opens in a new window)International Conference on Space Optics and (opens in a new window)Communicating Astronomy with the Public.

An EIRSAT-1 Space Art Challenge outreach project, run in partnership with the Museum of Literature Ireland and the Junior Certificate School Programme Demonstration Library Project, received more than 300 entries.

Supporting Industry is core to C-Space’s mission and, in partnership with SIS, we have developed and delivered two training courses targeted at supporting Irish involvement with ESA. These are the one day Doing Business with ESA course to support those relatively new to or interested in working with ESA; and the two day Winning ESA Proposals which teaches a proven process for delivering high quality proposal in an efficient way. These courses were delivered in March 2021. These courses will be run again in the autumn and you can register interest through the (opens in a new window)Space Industry Skillnet webpage.

On May 19^th, Prof David Browne was invited by the United Nations to address their global (opens in a new window)Hypergravity/Microgravity webinar series on Material Science. Congratulations to David from all at C-Space on this honour. His talk can be found (opens in a new window)here. [Talk starts at 1h20m].

On May 13th, Prof Mauro Paternostro of Queens University Belfast was hosted by C-Space and the UCD Centre for Quantum Engineering, Science and Technology to deliver a seminar on Quantum Physics in Space. Prof Paternostro described how advances in quantum control and engineering are spurring a revolution in the way fundamental physics questions are explored at the empirical level.  At the same time, he reported that they are the seeds for future disruptive technological applications of quantum mechanics.  One of the key points made was that a space-based environment may open new avenues for both the development of quantum technologies and their use for fundamental and applied investigations. Prof Paternostro covered both fundamental scientific questions enhanced by the use of quantum technologies in space and the possible implementation of such technologies for a variety of academic and commercial purposes. Thank you Mauro!

In early May over 200 scientists from around the world (virtually) attended the five-day International Astronomical Union Symposium on "Massive Stars Near and Far". This major international conference was organized by a group of astronomers at institutes across Ireland, including UCD. At the meeting, the scientific community came together to discuss exciting results on gravitational waves, massive stellar evolution and supernovae and more; as well as ht prospects for upcoming telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope. While this meeting was held online due to the pandemic, an in-person conference is planned to be held in Ireland in early 2022.

The C-Space director and UCD Science internship manager met with a number of SMEs who are part of ESACCL to present the opportunity for recruitment of UCD Space Science and Technology Masters’ students to conduct a 3-month internship in their business. If you are interested in finding out more, please contact internship manager via (opens in a new window)scienceinternships@ucd.ie 

ESA’s OSIP is a website that enables the submission of novel ideas for space technology and applications. Anybody is welcome to submit ideas through OSIP.  OSIP allows ESA to discover novel ideas and invest in new unconventional activities to foster advancement in the space industry. There has been relatively little participation from Irish universities in the co-funded research activities and on the OSIP platform in general so please do check it out: (opens in a new window)https://ideas.esa.int/

EIRSAT-1 survives an intense environmental qualification campaign

 Strathclyde space expert helps bolster Irish space sector ambitions

In the first of a series of planned visits, (opens in a new window)Professor Malcolm Macdonald from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, visited C-Space to discuss ongoing research and innovation, share knowledge and experience on space projects and discuss space research strategy. Professor Macdonald is Chair of (opens in a new window)Applied Space Technology at the University of Strathclyde, formerly a non-executive board member of the UK Space Agency, and supported the development of Scotland’s first spacecraft, UKube-1, which was launched in 2014. UCD and University of Strathclyde are also collaborating on a Science Foundation Ireland Frontiers for the Future project, led by (opens in a new window)Professor Lorraine Hanlon, which involves system modelling, payloads and materials to allow future nanosatellite missions to build on the work of EIRSAT-1. Professor Macdonald’s visit coincided with Space Week (4-10 October) in Ireland, during which he and members of the C-Space team met with national level policymakers to share insights from the successful Scottish space industry and discuss opportunities for Ireland through the National Space Strategy for Enterprise. Professor Macdonald said: “Scotland now has over 170 organisations involved in the space sector, which has grown by two thirds since 2014-15. The Scottish space success story has proven the direct link between funding for space research and growth in successful space activity. I welcome UCD's increasing space activity including EIRSAT-1, the recent CAMEO award, and the continuing space-related work across many schools.”

First All-Ireland space industry day

The first All-Ireland space industry day, hosted by the ADS Group, took place in Armagh on October 21st and was well attended by over 100 participants. Programme manager, Dr. Ronan Wall, who was one of the event organisers, gave an overview of C-Space. Presentations were made by representatives of the research community and by SMEs, including Mbryonics, Enbio, Eire Composites, Andor and Icemoss.  Liz Seward from Airbus Defence and Space, and the Women in Aerospace UK Working Group chair, presented results of the organisation’s latest survey on career advancement for women in the sector. A second meeting took place at NUIM in May 2022, with a focus on downstream space activities.

C-Space hosted a space-themed research brainstorm on November 16th to generate ideas for ‘Creating Our Future,’ a national initiative from the Government of Ireland. During this stimulating, interactive online event, chaired by Rebecca Wilson from Science Foundation Ireland, 40 participants explored the following questions: Are space research and exploration important for Ireland's future? What areas of space research should Ireland concentrate on? What are the measures needed to ensure Ireland can become a key global player in space research? The outcomes from this important Government campaign are available in the final (opens in a new window)reports.

December 2021 saw the first in-person graduation ceremonies in UCD for almost 2 years. Despite Storm Barra’s best attempts to derail plans, many of the students from the MSc in Space Science and Technology class, and their families, were able to attend the re-scheduled event. This year’s McEnery Medal and Prize, co-sponsored by UCD School of Physics and the Irish Space Industry Group, was awarded to David Cleary. Many of the graduates have already taken up roles in Irish and global space companies, including Icon Geo, Fieldy, Spire Global and EUMETSAT. Congratulation to all the graduates who did such fantastic work under very challenging circumstances. You can read more about the MSc programme here: https://www.ucd.ie/physics/spacescience/ . We are always keen to talk to companies or research groups who might like to host one of our students during their internship.
We also warmly congratulate Dr. Sarah Walsh on the award of her PhD, co-supervised by (opens in a new window)Assoc. Prof. Sheila McBreen and (opens in a new window)Asst. Prof. Antonio Martin-Carrillo, for her research on verification approaches for ESA’s large X-ray mission, Athena, and for EIRSAT-1. Sarah has taken up a role as Fleet Operations Engineer for OneWeb. Fergal Marshall successfully completed his research Masters on the EIRSAT-1 ground segment in the School of Computer Science. He was co-supervised by Derek Greene and Sheila McBreen.

Assistant Professor (opens in a new window)David McKeown displayed a testbed for controlling the motion of flexible spacecraft in Ireland's pavilion at the World Expo in Dubai. Expo 2020(+1) had as its the theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’. Expo 2020 is a major platform for the Department of Foreign Affairs who are working with Government Departments, State Agencies, business, arts and culture, academia and the creative industries to ensure an impactful Ireland presence.