The Space Industry offers a wide variety of careers and opportunities. You might be surprised at the variety of opportunities across maths, physics, chemistry, engineering and computing. Below you’ll find a number of career stories of people working in diverse areas of the Space sector.
If you are interested in finding out more about working in Space related career, check out our series of videos featuring people from Ireland working in this area.
If you are interested in finding out more about working in Space related career, check out our series of videos featuring people from Ireland working in this area.
A growing number of Irish companies are developing products and services that will support the European Space programme and that can also be made available on the global market.
Ireland’s membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) has allowed Irish Industry to develop highly advanced technologies with extremely high levels of performance and reliability required for space systems. There are currently about 50 Irish companies, mostly small to medium sized enterprises, working with ESA, and in some cases also with other space agencies such as NASA.
Irish space companies cover a wide range of technology areas including; spacecraft avionic, electronic components, software for spacecraft control and human spaceflight, advanced materials and structures for satellites and launch vehicle, space propulsion, optoelectronic devices for satellites, and biomedical instruments for human spaceflight. Irish companies are also developing technologies and products for the commercial satellite end user market.
Innovative technologies
Irish companies have demonstrated an ability to bring highly innovative technologies to the commercial space market, in many cases developed in collaboration with Irish universities and research institutes. Irish companies have also shown a strong capacity to adapt space technologies for non-space markets such as aerospace, biomedical and telecommunications.
Companies working in the space programme and market employ people with a range of skills including technical, business development, marketing, finance and legal expertise. Given the highly technical nature of space work, there is a strong demand for technical expertise in science, mathematics and engineering.
The range of technology disciplines required can be quite wide, deepening on each companies specific area of activity and can include mechanical, mechatronic, electrical, biomedical, communications and software engineering, as well as basic science such as physics, chemistry, biology and maths.