Innalabs secures 2.6m ESA contract.
InnaLabs has announced a 2.6m contract with ESA to design, develop, manufacture and test a highly reliable radiation hardened 3-axis gyroscope, used for measuring angular velocity or maintaining orientation of satellites.
While the initial opportunity is for science mission applications, the technology will serve a large spectrum of commercial space activities including Earth observation, communications and navigation satellites. InnaLabs’ gyroscope cutting edge technology is also applied in a wide range of terrestrial applications such as air transportation, autonomous vehicles, marine, civil engineering projects, rail transportation systems and the oil and gas industries.
This contract follows the successful completion by InnaLabs of ESA space projects worth €980k that was secured after an Enterprise Ireland trade mission to ESA’s main technology development and test facility, ESTEC, in The Netherlands in 2017.]
Welcoming the news Minister Halligan - said “Today’s announcement is yet another example of the growing number of Irish companies benefitting from Ireland’s membership of ESA. Through our continued investment in the European Space Agency and with the support of my Department and Enterprise Ireland, Ireland’s space sector will continue to go from strength to strength.”
Speaking about InnaLabs’ success, CEO of InnaLabs John O’Leary said “We are delighted to announce this contract with ESA which validates our products internationally and gives us the opportunity to offer our CVG technology to the space market segment. We are also pleased to learn that a national Space Strategy for Enterprise is under development. We believe this will be an invaluable resource for Ireland to continue to succeed in the space sector, but also to facilitate Irish companies to expand into related commercial markets following ESA validation.”
Welcoming the announcement, Gearóid Mooney, Divisional Manager of Enterprise Ireland’s Research and Innovation Business Unit, said: “the InnaLabs contract is further evidence of the growing capabilities of Irish firms to develop high performance and high reliability technologies for the global space market, with the support of the European Space Agency.”
The announcement at InnaLabs headquarters in Blanchardstown was delivered alongside one by the Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, John Halligan T.D., who revealed the development of Ireland’s first national Space Strategy for Enterprise by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, setting out how Ireland can maximise the benefit of its investment in the European Space Agency (ESA) and in the European Union’s (EU) flagship space programmes, Copernicus, Galileo and Horizon 2020.
The steering group for the Space Strategy for Enterprise will set out details about the process for producing the strategy when it meets in the coming weeks. This will include details about the public consultation that it will organise and which will be accessible on the websites of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland.