Welcome to SpaceTech Ireland — a fast, Ireland-focused read on the space economy.

This week: The case for Ireland to fund space research the way it funds quantum and AI moved a step closer this week, as UCD's Professor Lorraine Hanlon told SpaceTech Ireland she will press the higher education minister for a national space research centre. In Galway, Mbryonics claimed a world first in space optical communications, while in Dublin, Réaltra's cameras prepare to fly again on the most powerful Ariane 6 yet.

Ireland should set up a national research centre for space, on a par with the State-funded centres that already exist for fields such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence, Professor Lorraine Hanlon said in an interview with SpaceTech Ireland.

Hanlon, professor of astronomy and director of UCD's Centre for Space Research, chairs a national advisory forum on space research. She said she intends to make the case to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, James Lawless, arguing that space has been left out of a funding stream open to other research fields.

State funding agency Research Ireland periodically runs competitions for large national research centres - multi-university consortia built around a single theme and backed by industry money. Centres exist for quantum, artificial intelligence and other priority areas. None has ever opened for space.

"We've never had such a call for space," Hanlon said. "What we're hoping is to push, through the strategy, to make the case to the Department for Higher Education and Minister Lawless that space needs a national centre of that scale."

The point is not that Irish space researchers have applied and been turned down, she said. The competition has never run in their field, so there has been no way in.

That national call is separate from a goal UCD has set for itself. The first objective of the university's Space Strategy to 2030, launched in May, is to secure €30 million to establish a UCD-led Space Research, Development and Innovation centre, with dedicated staff and facilities. The strategy says that sum would come from a mix of university funds, competitively won grants, EU and European Space Agency funding, and industry.

Hanlon said a national centre would give space research the long-term base it lacks, and that the demand to fill it already exists. A 2024 survey of Irish higher education institutions found widespread interest in space work, including among universities not currently active in the field.

Enjoying SpaceTech Ireland? It's a free weekly brief on Ireland's space economy. Subscribe here - and forward this to a colleague who'd want it.

Managing your cap table shouldn’t drain your time or derail your budget. Pulley takes the complexity and surprises out of equity management with intuitive workflows, audit-ready compliance, and accurate reporting—all backed by support and pricing you can rely on.

CFOs and finance leaders trust Pulley to stay compliant with key tasks like 409A valuations, ASC 718 reporting, or 83(b) elections without incurring expensive legal fees or getting bogged down with manual work. With Pulley, you get 100% audit-defensible data, powerful tools, and real expertise.

Learn more here

Another Galway development to follow last week's NTT news. On 9 June Mbryonics announced STARLIGHT, which it describes as the world's first 25–800G bi-directional coherent optical transceiver built for space - hardware that lets satellites swap data by laser at near-fibre speeds, far faster than the radio links used today.

Mbryonics hosted the annual meeting of STARLight - a separate, confusingly similar-sounding European research project, led by Belgian tech institute imec, in which Mbryonics handles the space side - in Galway on 9–10 June.

"Our STARLIGHT Coherent Transceiver is a vital part of our satellite Optical Communications Platform," said CEO John Mackey.

The transceiver builds on Mbryonics' partnership with Japanese telecoms giant NTT, reported here last week, which aims to lift space communication speeds more than tenfold over today's methods.

NASA named the four-strong crew of Artemis III on 9 June, with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano assigned as pilot - the first European to hold a seat on an Artemis mission.

The Italian flies alongside commander Randy Bresnik and lander specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas. The mission, now planned for 2027, has been recast as a crewed test flight in Earth orbit rather than a landing.

Orion will carry out rendezvous and docking demonstrations with early versions of the Blue Origin and SpaceX landing systems, ahead of the South Pole landing planned for Artemis IV in 2028. Europe contributes twice over - Parmitano in the cockpit and ESA's third European Service Module, which powers the Orion capsule.

Parmitano's selection, said ESA director general Josef Aschbacher, reflected the depth of European expertise in human spaceflight.

"The US may have a head start in space, but that's no reason for the rest of the world not to aim higher. Our €270m Series D shows that capital is following conviction, and the SpaceX IPO boosts the global ecosystem. Next week, we're back on the pad for our second mission" - Daniel Metzler, CEO, Isar Aerospace.

Spectrum's long-delayed qualification flight window opens 15–21 June from Andøya, Norway, carrying five CubeSats and an ESA Boost! experiment. Defence customers now account for around 60% of demand, the company says. The qualification flight follows the loss of Spectrum's debut flight in March 2025.

🚀 The government launched Rinn Semiconductors on 10 June, a national research centre led by Cork's Tyndall Institute with €71m of funding (part of a wider €460m research package). Its focus is the next chapter in chip-making: as the industry shifts to "chiplets" - building powerful processors by combining smaller specialised chips in a single advanced package. Irish space firms developing photonics and radiation-tolerant electronics depend on exactly that packaging know-how.

🚀 SUAS Aerospace is at the ILA Berlin Air Show this week (10–12 June), meeting launch companies, investors and government agencies as it pursues plans for a commercial spaceport.

🚀 ESA has signed an agreement with US commercial firm Vast for a private astronaut mission to the ISS, with Czech ESA reserve astronaut Ales Svoboda set to serve as pilot - and, pending approval, to become the first Czech to visit the station - alongside commander Thomas Pesquet. The 2027 flight would travel on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. A month after Ireland signed the Artemis Accords, another small ESA state is finding a commercial route to space - here through an ESA-brokered deal.

Pilot Photonics (Dublin) - ESA contract - €1m - to space-proof its Optical Frequency Generator Unit (OFGU), a photonics-based alternative to the electronic frequency generators satellites use today. Conventional units strain under data-heavy traffic; Pilot's OFGU uses optical comb lasers to deliver more capacity, less weight, in increasingly crowded orbital frequency bands (there are roughly 12,500 active satellites in low Earth orbit). The DCU spin-out's work draws on years of research at DCU, Trinity and Tyndall, and follows a €600,000 ESA contract in 2022 and €2.5m from the European Innovation Council in 2024.

ICEYE (Finland) - Series F - €450m of new investment, part of a deal worth more than €1bn once existing shareholders selling stakes are counted. Led by General Atlantic, with Qatar Investment Authority, TCV, Nokia and four Finnish state-linked funds joining. Announced 9 June. Expected to close in Q3, subject to approvals. ICEYE builds radar satellites that can see through cloud and darkness, and the round values the company at more than €10bn - over four times its €2.4bn valuation last December. It passed €250m in revenue last year and has now sold satellite systems to seven governments. One of the largest private fundraisings in European defence and space to date.

Isar Aerospace (Germany) - Series D - €270m - new investors Island Green Capital and Molten Ventures, alongside HV Capital, Lakestar, UVC Partners and KfW Capital. Announced 9 June, taking total funding to roughly €800m. The capital funds serial production of the Spectrum rocket, targeting 40 a year, and a second launch site in Nova Scotia.

Looking ahead - DTIF Call 8, opens 1 October. Separately from ESA, the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund opens its eighth call on 1 October, with €40m available; applications run to 31 January 2027. DTIF backs commercial deployment of disruptive technologies through research-industry collaboration, and has awarded over €530m across seven calls since 2018.

https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/what-we-do/innovation-research-development/disruptive-technologies-innovation-fund/

ESA BASS "The Arctic Region" - first sub-call opened 4 June

A new three-part thematic call on satellite services for the Arctic. The first sub-call, Environmental and Economic Resilience, opened on 4 June and covers ecosystem protection and climate-resilient industries including fisheries, aquaculture and food security. Two further sub-calls follow: maritime safety and navigation (ice monitoring, route optimisation, search and rescue), and security and critical infrastructure protection. Relevant to Irish maritime EO and ship-tracking capabilities. business.esa.int/funding

PICTURE: When a more powerful Ariane 6 lifts off this month, the live images will come from cameras designed and built by Dublin company Réaltra Space Systems Engineering. Réaltra has supplied its VIKI video telemetry system of six onboard HD cameras since the rocket's maiden flight in July 2024. The company also built GEKI, a satellite-navigation telemetry system that provides the launcher's positioning, velocity and timing data.

Next week: more funding, contracts, and careers in Ireland's space economy - delivered weekly.

Know an Irish space startup we should cover?

Email [email protected]