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

This week: We begin a series on how young people are finding their way into the space industry. Orlaith Doyle took ordinary-level maths at school and is now at the European Space Agency, working on data from the Biomass radar satellite. She would like to come home when her internship ends in October, but has found few openings in Ireland. A summit in Dublin on 12 October will discuss how to build the sector's workforce. Dublin company Lios has won a US award for SoundBounce, its material for shielding satellites from launch noise, and Celtonn will pitch to investors in Bordeaux. Mbryonics remains the biggest Irish space hirer, with around 22 roles open in Galway and Cork.

In the first of a series on how young people are finding their way into the space industry, Orlaith Doyle talks about her past six months at the European Space Agency, working on ESA’s forest-mapping Biomass satellite. She never sat Leaving Cert physics and she never did higher-level maths. Her internship ends soon, and she would like her next job to be in Ireland. But she’s finding opportunities are rare.

Orlaith Doyle took ordinary-level maths at school and had to repeat modules during her physics degree. At 26, she works at the European Space Agency, testing whether data from Biomass, a satellite built to measure forests, can also be used to study the oceans.

"The students that do ordinary level, they need to be told that it's not a closed door," she says.

Her route into space has involved encouragement from family and lecturers, a laboratory teaching job, saving for a master’s degree and a follow-up email when an internship application appeared to have gone quiet.

It began much earlier, under the night skies around Blessington in Co Wicklow. With little light pollution where she lived, looking at the stars was part of growing up.

“From, I’d say about the age of five, I wanted to work in space, and they actively helped me pursue that,” she says of her parents.

However, “space didn’t really seem like a career option in Ireland”.

Having taken biology and chemistry for the Leaving Cert rather than physics, and having been taught through Irish at a Gaelscoil, she spent her first year of Physics with Astronomy at Dublin City University catching up on both the subject and its English vocabulary.

“There were some years I would have to repeat modules, which, I mean, it’s part of learning, I guess.”

In her fourth year, facing two repeat modules, she took a job teaching first-year physics at the DCU lab, which gave her practical experience, time to study and something to look forward to.

At a party celebrating EIRSAT-1, Ireland’s first satellite, she learned about the space work under way at University College Dublin.

“So that kind of got me linked in with UCD and all of the cool stuff they were doing, which I didn’t really know about up until that point.”

She applied for UCD’s MSc in Space Science.

“I had to save up quite a lot of money for it, but it was definitely worth it, every cent.”

The course helped her see the range of careers connected to space and choose the areas she wanted to pursue. Planetary geomorphology, remote sensing and radar stood out, alongside an optional geophysics module.

“So I think the main skills that I’ve been using here, I only learned them in the Master’s. I wouldn’t have had them otherwise.”

An internship formed part of the course, and teaching staff encouraged students to pursue opportunities that interested them. Orlaith watched for ESA’s call and applied through its internship portal, following up by email after she initially heard nothing.

“Honestly, I think it was just pure luck and really, really good timing,” she says.

Her six-month internship runs to the end of October. Living in The Hague, in the Netherlands, she spends her working days examining satellite imagery for possible new research uses.

“I’m looking at getting climate data relating to sea surface salinity, sea surface temperature, and then also just general wave spectra from it,” she says of the Biomass data.

“I feel like an explorer. It’s nice.”

After about two months of job applications, she says she has found few opportunities in Ireland matching her interests in astronomy and space science.

She is careful to distinguish those interests from the broader range of jobs open to someone with physics and technical skills. Her own preference would be to return, if the right opportunity existed.

“I love my family and I love my country, so I would love to go home, but only if I can grow at home.”

Asked what would attract her to an Irish employer, she emphasises pay, some flexibility to work from home and the chance to learn from more experienced colleagues. She is speaking for herself, she stresses.

“We need enough money, even as young, early-career professionals, to actually live on.”

She also wants a role that develops her skills.

“I wouldn’t want to join a job and stay in an entry-level role where I’m actually not learning from people that are slightly higher up than me.”

A PhD in remote sensing or astronomy appeals. Still, she is interviewing for jobs and would consider working in Ireland or elsewhere, provided the role offers scope to keep learning. ESA’s graduate trainee programme is another possibility she may pursue.

For now, she wants to discover what working in a company would add to the knowledge she has gained over the past year.

Outside work, she tutors second-level students.

“There’s so many opportunities and there’s so many pathways to it. It doesn’t have to be one set road.”

She knows that not every young person has the encouragement she received at home.

“You just need to keep trying.”

COMING UP:

A summit on building Ireland's space workforce takes place at the Guinness Enterprise Centre, Dublin 8, on Monday 12 October, from 10.30am to 1.30pm. People from industry, universities and government will discuss how to act on Beyond the Horizon: Building Ireland's Space Workforce, a report on the skills the sector needs. The report was led by the Department of Further and Higher Education's regional skills network, working with the Irish Space Association, the Space Industry Skillnet and Space Life Sciences Ireland. Registration is required and places are limited. Details and registration

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Dublin company Lios has won the Most Creative Application award in the design category at this week's CAMX composites and advanced materials expo in Atlanta for SoundBounce, a material designed to protect satellites from the noise of rocket launches.

The award is part of the American Composites Manufacturers Association's Awards for Composites Excellence programme.

Under ESA's Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, Lios is developing and testing SoundBounce for use inside payload fairings, the protective nose cones that enclose satellites during launch.

Launch noise and vibration can damage delicate instruments, and conventional acoustic protection adds weight and takes up space. SoundBounce is designed to protect satellites with thinner, lighter material, which leaves more room for the payload.

Lios has worked with ArianeGroup and Beyond Gravity on its development. Other possible uses include vibration protection for sensors and acoustic insulation for small launchers.

Lios says its first commercial SoundBounce products are due off its pilot production line in the final quarter of this year.

🚀 Dublin company Celtonn has been selected to pitch to investors at the Inpho Venture Summit in Bordeaux on 22–23 October. The NovaUCD-based start-up designs and builds W-band radio hardware, which works at very high frequencies and is used in satellite communications, radar and future 6G networks. It says most hardware of this kind used in Europe is made outside Europe.

🚀 More than 100 students signed up for induction night at UCC's Rocketry and Space Exploration Society, which held its first engineering meeting of the academic year on Tuesday. Newcomers will build and launch beginner rockets before moving on to a high-powered competition rocket. UCC is the only Irish team selected for this year’s European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC), taking place in Constância, Portugal, from 15 to 21 October. It will be the society’s first appearance at the competition.

🚀 In the week after the US declared it had deployed a weapon in space, Britain announced its first military unit tasked with countering threats to its satellites in orbit. Its commander said space had "become a warfighting domain whether we like that or not", citing Russian military satellites manoeuvring near Finnish commercial satellites and attempts to disrupt GPS signals.

EnduroSat (Bulgaria) has raised €178m ($205m) to scale up satellite manufacturing, open a facility in the US and expand its space and defence base in Bulgaria.

TUSK IC (Belgium) has raised a €15m Series A, led by Matterwave Ventures, FORWARD.one and the Flanders Future Tech Fund. The company will use the money to mass-produce its chips for satellite connectivity, which steer radio signals between satellites and user terminals and are made on standard silicon production lines.

ICEYE (Finland) and Leonardo (Italy) have won ESA contracts to study designs for the European Earth Observation Governmental Service, a planned European satellite system that will supply imagery to governments. Contract values were not disclosed.

If you’re building an international team, another company has likely already wrestled with the same questions you’re facing.

Oyster’s events bring together founders, HR leaders, and global employment experts to share what they’re seeing, testing, and learning in the real world.

How do you hire in a new country? When does EOR make sense? How should you approach global compensation? And how do you stay compliant when the rules change from one market to the next?

Come for the insights, stay for the ideas you can actually take back to your team.

Find your next event

ESA Kick-Starts - Rolling feasibility-study funding, up to €75,000 per contract at 75% coverage (maximum project cost €100,000), for six-month studies on satcom, Earth observation or navigation applications. Open to companies from ESA member states, including Ireland. The next evaluation batch closes on 30 October. Apply via business.esa.int/funding.

EIC Accelerator - The EU's main funding programme for high-risk start-ups and SMEs, offering grants of up to €2.5m plus equity investment. Companies first submit a short proposal, which can be sent at any time and takes four to six weeks to assess. Those that pass can submit a full proposal. The last full-proposal deadline this year is 4 November 2026. Apply via the EIC website.

PICTURE: The first stage of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One rocket with its cluster of nine Helix engines installed. It was taken in the assembly, integration and testing (AIT) hangar at SaxaVord Spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands, Scotland, UK. RFA is one of three companies, alongside Isar Aerospace and PLD Space, to have signed conditional contracts under ESA's European Launcher Challenge in August. RFA's is worth €186.9m and depends on RFA One flying successfully by 2027. Isar's Spectrum reached orbit from Norway on 5 September.

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

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