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Irish satellite communications company Celtonn will pitch to investors at the CASSINI Business Accelerator's flagship demo day in Bremen next week, as it looks to close a €1.5m funding round.

The Dublin-based start-up, which recently relocated from Limerick to NovaUCD's innovation hub, is the only Irish company selected for this year's CASSINI programme — the European Union's flagship space entrepreneurship accelerator. The selection brought Celtonn a €75,000 cash prize alongside access to the bloc's space industry network.

The November 18-20 pitch event coincides with Space Tech Expo Europe, one of the sector's largest trade shows, where Celtonn will exhibit as part of Enterprise Ireland's national delegation. The Irish contingent includes Mbryonics, which manufactures space-grade electronics, space-electronics/avionics firm Réaltra Space Systems, and Emerald Aero.

“Being the only Irish company selected for the current CASSINI Business Accelerator is a significant milestone for us as a company,” said Aoife Kelly, founder and COO, Celtonn.

“Through the programme participants receive €75,000 cash prize, but more importantly we have had the opportunity to connect with leading European professionals, investors, and partners who are helping us accelerate our growth.

“We are currently seeking to finalise a €1.5m funding round to develop mission-critical capabilities, expand our engineering capacity, and accelerate deployment of our technology to international partners, so we are looking forward to pitching to potential investors at the upcoming Demo Day event.”

Celtonn's participation in CASSINI marks a test case for whether Irish space ventures can compete for the institutional and venture capital increasingly flowing into Europe's NewSpace sector.

Proveye landed its third European Space Agency contract and signed a distribution deal in the same week. The NovaUCD climate tech company now has access to more than 1,000 Irish dairy and beef farms.

The contracts: ESA's Spark Funding — designed to accelerate product development for companies integrating space tech — will complete development of ProvVari, Proveye's precision fertiliser platform. Total ESA backing now stands at €900,000 (2024), €225,000 (2022), plus this latest award.

The goal: launch in the first quarter of 2026 in Ireland, then internationally.

The distribution: MILJO, a Mallow agricultural tech provider, will integrate ProvVari into its grassland and nutrition management service. Howard Farms, one of Munster's largest feed suppliers, will offer it to its customer base across Ireland.

How it works: ProvVari combines ESA's Sentinel satellite imagery with drone data and AI to generate precision fertiliser maps. It aims to reduce waste and environmental impact whilst maintaining yields.

Why it matters: Proveye appears to have solved a problem most earth observation startups face — getting farmers to actually use satellite data. The company has embedded its platform within existing agricultural supply chains.

Howard Farms already has the relationships. Proveye provides the analytics. Farmers will be able to access the service through suppliers with whom they have built trust.

Irish agriculture has been slower to adopt precision farming techniques common in North America and continental Europe, despite expertise in milk processing and genetics. Demand is building though, now that EU environmental monitoring requirements are tightening. Agricultural subsidies now require data-backed compliance.

Proveye's model skips satellite manufacturing entirely, building instead on ESA's existing Sentinel constellation. While MBRYONICS and Réaltra are building hardware, Proveye is building on top of existing infrastructure.

Engineers bolted together the two halves of PLATO this week, Europe's telescope designed to find Earth-like worlds out in space. The European Space Agency mission now enters final testing before its launch, set for December 2026.

Dublin firm Réaltra Space Systems Engineering built the thermal control system keeping PLATO's 26 cameras at operating temperature.

The €3.4m contract is Ireland's largest hardware contribution to an ESA science mission.

German prime contractor OHB System AG spent eight years getting here. They've now joined the camera-carrying “optical bench” with the service module housing power, propulsion and communications.

PLATO will park 1.5 million kilometres from Earth and watch 250,000 stars for what scientists say is the telltale dimming that signals orbiting planets.

"With 26 cameras instead of a single large telescope, PLATO will be able to monitor around 250,000 stars for orbiting planets," said Professor Heike Rauer at the German Aerospace Center.

Réaltra, part of Dublin-based Realtime Technologies Ltd, did the work at its Irish facility. The project supports engineering jobs and feeds the domestic supply chain.

The next step is environmental testing in the Netherlands.

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Gravitics, a US start-up backed by a $60m Space Force contract, has built Diamondback, a small orbital carrier that aims to keep law and order in space.

The vehicle will act as a garage that will house space’s first police car, as well as an assortment of interceptors, satellite jammers and other space defence hardware.

CEO Colin Doughan, who unveiled Diamondback at Payload’s Space Investor Summit in California on Tuesday, wants us to think of it as the first police station in space, ready to respond to threats.

"When we spoke with [Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael] Guetlein in February, he said, 'This is the first true deterrent I have for space,'" Doughan said.

The Space Force apparently agrees. Gravitics secured a contract worth up to $60M to build Diamondback. The carriers can hold multiple space-based interceptors—"a high-capacity magazine," in Doughan's words—or deploy non-kinetic systems like dazzlers to stop attacks without creating debris.

Stop trouble before it happens. That means if an adversary spacecraft is preparing to attack a US military satellite, Gravitics’ craft could deploy a jammer or dazzler, both non-kenetic ways to prevent an attack without creating debris, Doughan said.