On Thursday November 16th, members of the EIRSAT-1 team attended the first Irish Space Industry Group meeting in Athlone Institute of Technology. The Irish Space Industry Group was set up in 2015 to represent and promote the collective interests of companies operating in the space sector in Ireland at national and international level.
The meeting began with an address from Minister John Halligan, the Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development. He emphasised that Ireland’s Space Sector is growing and that the sector has his firm support. Presentations from Ciara Bartley, head of the Irish Delegation to ESA and Danny Gleeson, Chair of the Irish Space Industry Group showcased the range of Space companies in Ireland.
David Murphy presented the background of EIRSAT-1 to the audience, and an overview of the design and payloads. Lána Salmon presented the outreach plans which hope to fulfil some of the primary aims of the mission – to inspire young people to study STEM subjects and to advance and promote the Irish Space Industry. Throughout the day there were many presentations from companies involved in space, and seeing the breadth of these companies made it clear that Ireland’s space industry is growing.
At the networking lunch, the team were encouraged by the amount of interest and support from members of ISIG. We look forward to updating the group on our progress next year, and thank them for allowing us to speak about EIRSAT-1. Coincidentally, we bumped into a DeLorean as we were leaving and we had to sit in it!
