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

This week: Ireland’s space industry opens to mid-career job switchers as it enters pivotal year, a big year for Norah Patten, set to become the first Irish person in space, ESA Phi-Lab Ireland doubles its funding opportunities and NASA set to send astronauts around the Moon.

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• Career switchers wanted - Space companies seek professionals with 5-15 years' experience in adjacent fields

• Ireland's first astronaut - Dr. Norah Patten set to become first Irish person in space, aboard a Virgin Galactic spacecraft set for takeoff in 2026

• ESA funding doubles - Phi-Lab Ireland moves to two annual calls from 2026, offering up to €400k for space-optimised technology

• Inflection year - Orbital refuelling, satellite-to-phone connectivity, launch competition, commercial stations, and satellite servicing all go operational in 2026

As we enter 2026, Ireland's space sector stands at an inflection point. The Beyond The Horizon report, launched in December, maps where the sector is and where the opportunities lie.

After three weeks examining different aspects of the report, this final look focuses on where the real opportunities are opening up.

The Irish space sector's main recruiting difficulties centre around experienced professionals in their 30s and 40s. The 2023 UK Space Sector Skills Survey found that senior positions were taking significantly longer to recruit than junior ones.

The Beyond The Horizon report confirms this pattern for Ireland, noting "challenges in recruitment and retention persist, especially for experts at the mid-career level".

This is mainly due to competition. Space companies are losing talent to other engineering sectors (39% cite this as a barrier) and to tech and IT firms (20%). The median time to fill a role has stretched to 10 weeks, and even when companies do hire, new staff often lack some of the specific skills needed.

However, this creates an opportunity for career switchers. Professionals with 5-15 years of experience in adjacent fields, be it data analytics, climate tech, agritech or advanced manufacturing, have transferable skills that space companies need.

The sector is looking for people who understand systems engineering, data pipelines, regulatory frameworks, or complex project delivery and can learn the space-specific elements.

And the timing is right. Ireland has committed more than €170m to ESA programmes through 2030, focusing on Earth observation, secure communications, navigation systems, and space transportation.

A new National Space Research and Innovation Strategy is due for publication. All of which represent an expansion in the scale and ambition of Irish space activity, which means more mid-level roles opening up throughout 2026.

2026 is shaping up to be a monumental year for Dr. Norah Patten as she prepares to make history as the first Irish person in space. After years of advocacy and training, the Mayo aeronautical engineer is set to launch aboard Virgin Galactic’s new Delta Class spacecraft as part of a specialist research crew.

Patten will serve as a payload specialist on the IIAS-02 mission alongside colleagues from the U.S. and Canada. Her preparations have intensified significantly, with ongoing microgravity research flights at the National Research Council in Ottawa and high-G centrifuge training to simulate launch forces.

She has also secured a key partnership with Aer Lingus to support her travel between Dublin and training facilities in North America.

If schedules hold, lift-off is expected before the end of 2026 from Spaceport America in New Mexico, marking the moment Ireland officially joins the ranks of spacefaring nations.

After a single pilot call in 2025, ESA Phi-Lab Ireland is moving to a regular rhythm of two funding calls every year from 2026 onwards.

That means twice as many opportunities for Irish manufacturers, materials companies and hardware start-ups to test whether their technology is truly "space-optimised", with:

ESA Phi-Lab Ireland

The global space industry is set for a revolution over the coming year. After years of incremental progress and delayed timelines, 2026 will see technologies move from the laboratory into operational service. Here are five developments that matter.

The Fuel Transfer That Changes Everything

In June, SpaceX is expected to attempt something that has never been done: transferring rocket fuel between two spacecraft docked in orbit. Two modified Starship vehicles will launch weeks apart, rendezvous in low Earth orbit, dock, and pump cryogenic propellant from one to the other using pressurised flow. Starship burns most of its fuel escaping Earth's gravity well, making missions beyond Earth orbit impossible without orbital refuelling. NASA's plans to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 depend on it.

Your Phone Becomes a Satellite Terminal

After years of trials, 2026 is when satellite broadband connectivity goes mainstream -actual 4G and 5G to the smartphone in your pocket, no special equipment required. AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 6 satellite, launched in December, is designed for peak rates up to 120 megabits per second directly to standard handsets. AST says it plans to launch a new satellite every month or two throughout 2026, targeting 45 to 60 satellites in orbit by year's end. Starlink is doing the same with partner networks. For maritime users and remote areas across Europe and Ireland, this closes connectivity gaps that have persisted for decades.

Competition Arrives at the Launch Pad

SpaceX has launched more than half of all orbital rockets in recent years. That changes in 2026. Blue Origin's New Glenn is targeting 12 or possibly more. Rocket Lab's Neutron is due to arrive at its Virginia launch pad soon and could fly by mid-2026. Europe's Ariane 6 is targeting doubling its launch rate to six to eight missions, whilst five new European launch companies have signed development contracts with ESA, with demonstrations required by 2027. For Irish companies in aerospace, the increased European launch cadence means more opportunities. Réaltra contributed flight systems to Ariane 6's maiden flight, and that pipeline is about to get a whole lot busier.

Private Companies Build Space Stations

California startup Vast targets the launch of Haven-1, the world's first standalone commercial space station, for May 2026. It’s a single module designed for short-duration crewed missions, but it's proof of the progress made by private companies. Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Sierra Space, and Voyager Space are all racing to capture the market for space-based manufacturing, tourism, and research that the International Space Station previously monopolised.

Space Stops Being Disposable

Four satellite servicing missions launch in 2026, signalling that expensive orbital assets no longer die when they run out of fuel. SpaceLogistics will deploy robotic servicers that can dock with satellites and potentially extend their operational lives by years. Astroscale will remove multiple pieces of debris in a single mission. This development is set to transform what was once disposable to durable.

Why 2026 Matters: Each of these technologies represents something that nearly happened in 2025 but faced delays. They are now set to reshape how space infrastructure is built and exploited.

It’s potentially a big moment too for the 116 Irish companies working with ESA, boosted by the government’s €170 million commitment to European space programmes through 2030.

🚀 A tiny astronaut has made giant history. After spending two weeks aboard China’s Tiangong space station, a female mouse successfully conceived and gave birth to nine healthy pups back on Earth in December. The mouse was one of four launched on Shenzhou-21 in late October and returned mid-November, suggesting that short-term exposure to microgravity and radiation may not permanently impair mammalian fertility.

🚀 SpaceX will reposition nearly half of its near 10,000 Starlink satellites from 550 kilometers down to 480 kilometers throughout 2026, responding to mounting concerns over orbital congestion and collision risks.

“We have initiated a forensic security analysis - currently in progress - and implemented measures to secure any potentially affected devices. Our analysis so far indicates that only a very small number of external servers may have been impacted.” - ESA confirming a security breach involving servers located outside the ESA corporate network.

“The EU Space Act…would establish a unified, EU-wide approach to regulating space activities… However, the Space act is poised to unleash a Pandora’s box of consequences, including putting a brake on innovation and raising the costs of doing business in space.” - former US Office of Space Commerce chief Kevin O’Connell.

Image taken from the International Space Station of a partial “lunar halo”, occurring when light is refracted through ice crystals high in Earth’s atmosphere, bending the light into a ring or arc around the Moon.

Until next week...

SpaceTech Ireland is the only newsletter focusing exclusively on Ireland's space sector opportunities.

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