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

This week: Ireland signs the Artemis Accords in Washington, becoming the 66th country and the last full ESA member to join the US-led space cooperation framework. Réaltra Space Systems wins the only Irish place in CASSINI, the European Commission's flagship space accelerator, days after its cameras flew on Ariane 6. And Thales Alenia Space adds a third LISA contract, keeping ÉireComposites and Tyndall in the chain on Europe's gravitational wave mission.

Ireland formally signed the Artemis Accords on Monday, becoming the 66th country to join the US-led framework for civil space exploration.

Enterprise Minister Peter Burke signed on behalf of the Government at a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington, hosted by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.

It brings Ireland into line with all 23 ESA member states and leaves Croatia as the only EU country outside the Accords. Malta signed the same day at a separate ceremony.

“We need to continue to support this innovation, this exciting infrastructure that is core to communications, to our resilience, to security in so many fields of our endeavour,” said Burke.

The Accords, established in 2020 by NASA and the State Department with seven founding nations, set out principles for activity on the Moon, Mars, comets and asteroids. Signatories commit to transparency on space policies, registration of space objects, emergency assistance, open sharing of scientific data, deconfliction of operations, and the preservation of historic sites and artefacts. Those commitments are based on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

For Irish industry, the signing is a political signal rather than a commercial one. ESA membership remains the main route through which Irish companies win space contracts. Government figures show Irish firms secured €24m in ESA contracts in 2024, more than double the 2023 total.

Ireland's signing is part of a wider surge. Five countries have joined the Accords in the past two weeks, with Latvia, Jordan and Morocco also signing in late April.

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Réaltra Space Systems has been selected for the seventh batch of the CASSINI Business Accelerator, the European Commission's flagship programme for growth-stage space companies. The Dublin-based firm is the only Irish company in a cohort of 21, chosen from more than 120 applicants.

The news comes a week after Réaltra's VIKI cameras flew on Ariane 6 flight VA268, the company's third mission aboard the new European launcher.

CASSINI describes Réaltra as designing and manufacturing space electronics and avionics built from commercially off-the-shelf components, combined with the company's own miniaturisation and ruggedisation expertise.

The six-month programme runs from May to October 2026. Participants receive one-on-one mentoring, training, investor matchmaking, and a €75,000 seed voucher on completion. CASSINI is the European Commission's flagship space entrepreneurship initiative, launched in January 2023.

Réaltra's selection follows Celtonn, the NovaUCD spinout developing mmWave semiconductor systems, which was the only Irish company in Batch 6 (November 2025–April 2026). Ireland has now placed a company in two consecutive cohorts.

The Batch 7 cohort spans space infrastructure, in-orbit operations, Earth observation, geospatial AI, and space-enabled life sciences.

Applications for Batch 8 will open in mid-August.

Redwire's Belgian team has finished building the onboard computers for two upcoming European Space Agency missions, Ramses and Genesis. The Ramses computer is now in final testing before delivery.

The same Ramses spacecraft will carry Irish hardware. InnaLabs, based in Blanchardstown, signed a contract in May 2025 to supply its ARIETIS-NS gyroscope to the mission, through prime contractor OHB Italia. Gyroscopes keep a spacecraft pointing the right way. It is the company's second deep-space contract.

The same gyroscope flew on Hera in October 2024, taking control of the spacecraft an hour and sixteen minutes after launch. Ramses reuses much of the Hera design, which is why some of the suppliers are the same.

Ramses passed its design review on 6 February 2026. Four days later, ESA signed an €81.2 million construction contract with OHB Italia, bringing total mission cost to about €150 million. Launch is planned for spring 2028, with arrival at the asteroid Apophis in February 2029 - two months before the asteroid's close pass by Earth.

🚀 ESA paid €51m to launch Sentinel-1C on Vega-C - ESA disclosures published last week show the agency paid more than €51m to launch the European Commission's Sentinel-1C Earth observation satellite aboard a Vega-C rocket from Kourou in December 2024. The figure is the first detailed cost breakdown ESA has put on the public record for a Vega-C launch.

🚀 25 May — ATU Space Industry Event, Sligo. RISE@ATU hosts an event for SMEs and researchers exploring routes into the Irish space sector. Confirmed speakers include Rob Conway-Kenny, manager of ESA Phi-Lab Ireland at Irish Manufacturing Research, who will outline Phi-Lab supports and other IMR routes for companies entering the ecosystem. Further speakers to be announced. Co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the EU through the ERDF Northern & Western programme. Booking via ATU Sligo on Eventbrite.

Thales Alenia Space adds €26.1m LISA telescopes contract with Irish Links

Thales Alenia Space, the French-Italian space group, has signed a third contract on ESA's LISA mission - €26.1m to begin work on the spacecraft's six telescopes, announced 5 May. Thales SESO, the group's optics arm in Aix-en-Provence, will handle the procurement, machining and polishing of the Zerodur glass-ceramic optics.

The deal keeps Irish suppliers in the chain on Europe's gravitational wave mission. ÉireComposites in Galway is building the carbon-fibre central tubes that form each spacecraft's backbone, and Tyndall in Cork is testing optical components that will help the mission's lasers measure tiny ripples in space.

EIC STEP names eight companies for scale-up funding, two in space

The European Innovation Council has selected eight European companies for its STEP Scale Up scheme, which provides equity investments of €10–30m per company. Two are directly space related: Payload Aerospace (Spain), developing space transportation services for cargo and human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, and Endurosat (Bulgaria), the small-satellite manufacturer that has previously raised significant private capital. STEP runs continuously, with the next evaluation deadlines on 9 September and 25 November 2026.

ESA Phi-Lab Ireland Call Two opens in the coming weeks. Expected May/June

Following last week's interview with Phi-Lab Ireland's Rob Conway-Kenny, a few things worth knowing if you're considering a bid:

ESA Phi-Lab Ireland

Still live from recent editions

The Horizon Europe Space Research Call 2026 (€90.97m, deadline 3 September) remains open across eight topics. The European Defence Fund 2026 work programme is live with deadlines in two tranches across April and September. ESA's Business Applications Kick-start Open Call closes 29 May. The BASS Wildfires call closes 9 June.

PICTURE: SpaceX Falcon Heavy lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the last of Viasat’s three-satellite ViaSat-3 constellation focused on enhancing internet connectivity in Asia.

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

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