Irish space technology companies are positioning themselves to benefit from the advancement of human space activities, such as space tourism, through training in key space safety topics from NASA experts, it emerged at the first ever training course on Space Systems Safety Engineering held in Ireland this week.

The venue for this unique space safety training course was the Midlands Innovation and Research Centre at Athlone Institute of Technology.

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

The unique training course called “Introduction to Space Systems Safety Engineering” was presented by Larry Gregg of NASA Johnson Space Centre and Paul Kirkpatrick of NASA Kennedy Space Centre both of whom work with space professionals including astronauts. The training course was run jointly with Space Industry Skillnet and the Space Safety Academy of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety.

Speaking today, May 8, promoter of the four-day Space Industry Skillnet training programme, Mr Danny Gleeson said “We are providing Irish technology companies with access to the best expertise in the world in space safety to ensure that they can compete effectively in the lucrative worldwide space market.”

"There have been some high profile events in the recent past that have given space activities a poor safety image but the reality is that space remains one of the safest industry sectors and enormous amounts of time and effort are spent to ensure the safety of human life and property in the space industry.”. 

"The issues of space safety will become even more important in the coming decades as space tourism emerges from speculation to reality and the protection of human life will become as important as it is in today’s aircraft based tourism industry and Irish companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of this future business opportunity.” added Mr Gleeson.

Paul Kirkpatrick, Chairman of the IAASS Training Programmes Committee, said “We appreciate the opportunity to provide this training to such a diverse group of people. It is an honour to share our expertise with people from Ireland and Europe. We hope that they are able to take this training and advance the needs of their organisations and themselves.”

The Space Industry Skillnet four-day training programme in the MIRC was attended by a mix of Irish and major space companies from around Europe as well as experts from the European Space Agency who came together to learn about space safety from world leading NASA experts. The objective of the training course is also to improve knowledge in the key area of space safety, encourage networking with European space companies and improve the capability of Irish companies to operate at the highest level in the international space industry.