News Editor John O’Connor reports on Ireland’s first satellite, built and designed by UCD students and faculty, and sits down with Professor Sheila McBreen to discuss the mission’s success.
On September 4 UCD’s EIRSAT-1 satellite de-orbited. Ireland’s first satellite was designed and constructed by a team of UCD students with the support of academic and professional staff in UCD’s School of Physics. The satellite was launched on 1 December 2023 and the success of the mission demonstrates Ireland’s ability to design, construct and operate a satellite and will lay the foundation for future growth in the Irish space sector.
EIRSAT-1 introduced space systems, engineering and skills not previously seen across any Irish industry and helped lead to the country’s largest space investment of €7.9m as part of the UCD-led National Space Subsystems and Payloads Initiative (NSSPI).
“We are very proud of the success of the EIRSAT-1 mission both from a technical perspective and also in terms of the training of more than 50 postgraduates who worked on the project mainly in the School of Physics and the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.” said Professor Sheila McBreen, Science Lead and Academic Lead for GMOD to the University Observer.
Professor McBreen’s area of interest involving the satellite was in its detector, the Gamma-ray Module, which is built for the detection of astrophysical sources called gamma-ray bursts or GRB’s. The detector recorded ten such GRB events which are associated with the deaths of stars via collapse of massive or merger of compact objects.
“The GMOD detector and the EIRSAT-1 satellite worked as intended in orbit and the whole team has learned from the experience [...] We are now looking to the future to build on the legacy of Ireland’s first satellite by building detectors for new missions and using the experience gained in our Space Science and Technology MSc programme."
We congratulate the UCD students and faculty involved in EIRSAT-1 for this incredible achievement.