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

This week: Réaltra's cameras ride Ariane 6, Mbryonics plants a flag in San Francisco, and SpaceTech Ireland interviews the man running ESA Phi-Lab Ireland on why Ireland's lack of launcher heritage is now an asset.

Dublin-based Réaltra's VIKI Video Telemetry System was on board Ariane 6 for flight VA268 early Thursday, with the cameras delivering live HD images of liftoff over French Guiana and of the booster tumbling away after separation from the first stage a few minutes into the flight. The launch window opened at 09:08 Irish time.

Ariane 64, the more powerful four-booster variant, carried 32 Amazon Leo satellites to low Earth orbit - the second of 18 Ariane 6 launches contracted to deploy Amazon's broadband constellation, formerly known as Project Kuiper.

It was the seventh flight of Ariane 6 overall, and only the second flight of the Ariane 64 variant, which uses four solid rocket boosters.

Réaltra's VIKI is qualified for all Ariane 6 flights and has been on board every mission to date, providing live HD imagery from on-board cameras through lift-off, booster separation, fairing jettison and payload deployment.

Rob Conway-Kenny took over ESA Phi-Lab Ireland just over a year ago. The programme - one of 10 national Phi-Labs across ESA member states, runs out of Irish Manufacturing Research in Mullingar, in partnership with the AMBER Centre at Trinity College Dublin. Call Two opens shortly. We sat down to talk about why he thinks Ireland's lack of space heritage is now an asset, what Phi-Lab looks for in applicants, and the funding-literacy gap in the Irish ecosystem.

Rob Conway-Kenny, 36, has been running ESA Phi-Lab Ireland for just over a year. A former Fulbright scholar at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he has also worked at the European Space Agency. His read on where the country sits in European space is not the usual one.

"Something that even 10 years ago was a hindrance - that we didn't have a launcher company in Ireland - it doesn't matter anymore," he told SpaceTech Ireland. "If anything, those countries are spending huge amounts of money on legacy players."

His argument is that the European primes - Airbus, Thales and Leonardo, now merging their space divisions into a single new company - were built around national agencies decades ago. They are expensive to maintain, slow to pivot, and tied to political mandates from a different era. The shift toward buying space technology from the private sector, rather than building it through national agencies, lets countries without that history move faster.

"The goal is we'll take a leadership position in Europe's space ambitions because that will be driven by the commercial sector," he said.

"The world is our oyster. And that's incredibly exciting."

ESA Phi-Lab Ireland is a 24-month programme that works a bit like an accelerator, but for hardware research rather than startup growth.

Selected companies get access to IMR's manufacturing facilities, AMBER's materials research, and ESA's commercialisation network - alongside funding of up to €400,000 per project.

"We proposed that our thematic focus area would be advanced materials and manufacturing. We're one of, I think, only two that really do hardware. A lot of the other Phi-Labs are software based and some of them even are additional Earth observation subsets."

IMR's specialism is additive manufacturing - industrial 3D printing - a competency that featured in "80 or 90 per cent" of the projects in the first call. "These companies are never going to buy a 3D printer!”

Phi-Lab bids run on a 70-30 rule, with one exception.

"Phi-Lab Austria accepts applications from anywhere in ESA. Any member state."

"All of the others, the other nine, we operate on a 70-30 model. So 70 per cent of the budget has to be a single applicant or a consortium of companies in their respective country. And 30 per cent can be from outside of their country, but within ESA member states.

"I think over time, we'll all go the way of Austria."

In practice, an Irish-led bid into ESA Phi-Lab Ireland keeps the majority of the budget at home and can bring in partners from anywhere in ESA for the rest. Irish companies can also join Phi-Lab bids elsewhere in Europe, but only as the minority partner. Ireland's own Phi-Lab is therefore the strongest route for Irish-led work.

Mbryonics and Ubotica were selected from the first Open Call. Call Two is expected to open in the coming weeks - "not beyond June" - and to be more competitive than the first round.

A common misconception is that Phi-Lab is primarily a funding mechanism. It is not.

Bidding companies "might have a phenomenal idea, that might have all the necessary tools, but if they're simply looking for a cash grant, we're the wrong programme for them. We have to have an ability as a technology centre to support."

What Phi-Lab looks for:

Companies whose ideas don't fit the hardware focus aren't turned away. IMR routes them toward Enterprise Ireland's Innovation Vouchers, the Innovation Partnership Programme, the Commercialisation Fund, or other supports. Conway-Kenny's advice for founders thinking about applying to Enterprise Ireland directly: don't go in cold.

"It's much easier for companies to come to somewhere like IMR or a university, work with them on the application, and then basically get the brain running.”

The Beyond the Horizon report - the Irish space workforce skills review - flagged the obvious gaps last December: systems engineering, QA, AI/ML, regulatory knowledge. Conway-Kenny pointed to a less visible one.

"It wasn't even a hard technical skills gap," he said. "It was individuals that are conscious of the funding ecosystem in Europe and abroad and bringing companies on funding journeys."

A startup, in other words, can have brilliant engineers and still fail to win funding it qualifies for, because nobody on the team knows how the system works.

The Space Strategy for Enterprise expired at the end of 2025. There is no successor yet.

"This is a sector that I think is of growing importance to the Irish economy. I'm hopeful in the next version of the strategy to see all sorts of ways that by 2030, Ireland isn't just considered a peripheral country in terms of its space sector, but that it's baked in right at the heart of decision-making."

Earlier this month Rob Conway-Kenny was appointed one of the first three Ambassadors of ECSECO, an ESA initiative focused on space economy, commerce and dual-use.

His longer view is that Europe needs to stop operating as a collection of national silos. France, Germany, Ireland - each with its own ecosystem, its own contacts, its own funding routes. He wants something more interoperable: an Irish company picking up the phone to a French one as easily as they pick up the phone to ESA. Whether the next strategy reflects that ambition is, for now, a question without an answer.

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🚀 Irish space companies will gain easier access to Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland support for defence-related work after the Cabinet on Tuesday approved a Bill removing a 1987 restriction that has long created uncertainty about how far the agencies can engage with dual-use technology firms. The government said the focus is on "defence, security and resilience" rather than military activity. It named space domain awareness alongside cyber defence, maritime security and hybrid threat monitoring as the dual-use areas where Irish firms have built expertise.

🚀 Galway-based Mbryonics has opened a San Francisco office, which puts the company within reach of the satellite operators, defence primes and venture investors driving the bulk of demand for laser communications hardware. It’s believed to be the first Irish space-facing company to open an office in the city.

“The Bill will help Ireland attract investment and support innovation in areas that matter for our long-term economic strength and national security” - Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, on new Irish legislation that explicitly opens easier enterprise-agency engagement with defence, security and resilience technologies, including space domain awareness.

Paris-based UNIVITY closed a €27 million Series A on 23 April, led by Blast and Expansion Ventures, with participation from the French state under France 2030 plus two family offices.

The round brings the company’s total funding to around €67 million, including a €31 million CNES contract last September.

UNIVITY is building a Very Low Earth Orbit constellation below 375 km to deliver wholesale 5G connectivity to telecom operators, positioned as a sovereign European alternative to Starlink and Amazon Leo. The Series A funds the uniShape demonstration programme: two satellites built, launched and operated by February 2028 to validate the system before commercial deployment. At full scale, the company is targeting around 1,600 satellites.

The programme is opening a new competitive call on 4 May aimed at the university sector. The brief covers space-based applications and services addressing research, education or campus infrastructure challenges — areas mentioned include smart-campus operations, environmental monitoring of university estates, and GNSS-enabled mobility services.

Selected studies receive 75% ESA funding, up to €75,000 per activity. Submission deadline is 12 June. Enterprise Ireland's letter of support is the standard route for Irish applicants.

Apply: https://business.esa.int/funding/call-for-proposals-competitive/university-tomorrow

ESA has opened a new Invitation to Tender under its FIRST! initiative, covering structures, materials, mechanisms and processes for space transportation. It is the first ITT to launch since November's Ministerial Council and follows a Pitch Day this month that drew almost 180 participants from 14 countries.

Proposals are sought across five domains: cryogenic-compatible composites, electromechanical structures for reusable launchers, mechanisms, materials and manufacturing processes. ESA budget has been increased this round to support maturation up to TRL6 (technology demonstrated in a relevant environment).

Ireland is among 18 FLPP-participating Member States, though access depends on subscription level.

Confirm eligibility via Enterprise Ireland or [email protected]. Deadline 27 May at 13:00 CEST (12:00 Irish time) via esa-star.

PICTURE: SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket on April 29 from Kennedy Space Center, marking the 12th flight after an 18-month break. The mission carried Viasat's 6-ton ViaSat-3 F3 satellite which promises fast broadband in Asia-Pacific.

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

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