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The Irish Space Association (ISA) will bring together the various stakeholders in Ireland’s space industry and grab a bigger portion of the growing global space market.
Ireland has created a new non-profit organisation to support and showcase its developing space industry.
The Irish Space Association (ISA) has been launched to bring together the various stakeholders in Ireland’s space industry and showcase its capabilities internationally. The non-profit was created in response to growing demand for sector-level representation.
The new organisation was officially launched yesterday (27 April) at Enterprise Ireland’s Dublin headquarters.
The ISA aims to build on the success of Ireland’s National Space Strategy, which was unveiled in 2019. This strategy set out ambitious targets to hit by 2025, such as doubling space-related revenue and employment in Irish space companies.
The non-profit will bring together stakeholders from industry, academia, and government, with the goal of capturing a larger portion of the global space sector. This sector is predicted to be worth up to $1.3trn by 2030.
The ISA launch event was chaired by John Halligan, the former Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development who launched the National Space Strategy.
The event also had speakers from the ISA committee including Patricia Moore, CTO of Dublin-based space-related ICT consultancy company Mindseed.
Moore described the ISA launch as a “major step forward” for Ireland’s space sector and said the sector is “arguably among the best poised” to help solve the various global challenges being faced.
“By uniting the community, we can collectively promote Ireland’s capabilities on the national and international stage, encouraging collaboration and driving innovation,” Moore said.
“The progress we have made since the introduction of the National Space Strategy is remarkable, and I am confident that ISA will help us to surpass our ambitious targets and set new ones as we look ahead to the future.”
Last November, Ireland announced a €125m commitment to the European Space Agency (ESA) over a five-year period. The country is also expected to launch its first satellite this year.
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