ESA and NASA experts visit the Midlands to train Irish companies how to work in the space industry.

The Space Industry Skillnet, a new network training initiative funded by Skillnets Ltd and Irish space companies involved in the delivery of technology and services to the European Space Agency (ESA) launched its first Space Industry training event in Athlone with senior experts from the ESA and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

The training course was called "Quality Assurance for Space Projects" and was presented by Tommaso Sgobba and Juan Carranza of ESA and Paul Kirkpatrick of NASA Kennedy Space Centre. The course was run under the Space Safety Academy of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety.

The venue for this unique training course was the Midlands Innovation and Research Centre at Athlone Institute of Technology. The 3 day training course took place on 5th, 6th and 7th September 2006.

The European Space Agency has a long history of spinning off the space industry quality standards to non-space industry and this is a rare opportunity both space and non-space companies to experience at first hand the space agency quality standards from leading experts in the field.

Speaking at the launch of the training course, Danny Gleeson, Space Industry Skillnet Network Promoter commented "This is the first time that this type of space industry training has taken place in Ireland and it will be of great benefit to all Irish companies who are or who want to be involved in ESA space programmes and for those non-space companies who want to embrace leading edge quality assurance principles in their software or hardware development activities."