Irish space tracking centre hopes to switch from drugs to junk
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was informed of the 10-year investment programme yesterday when he visited the centre on a hilly outcrop above the main Midleton-Fermoy road in Cork. He was there to view the country’s first earth observation ground station, which was built on site by Canadian company exactEarth.
The satellite tracking system is used to monitor the movement of vessels around the world’s seas and will be important in tracking illegal activity such as drugs shipments and people trafficking.
National Space Centre chief executive RoryFitzpatrick said the company hoped to get “a big dish operational which would track space junk”.
“People don’t realise this but there’s lots of it out there,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “There are 600,000 pieces of junk and it’s like going through an asteroid belt.”
Even the slightest impact could cause huge damage to multi-million satellites and spacecraft, so the importance of monitoring it cannot be overstated.
He remains confident the company could get some contracts from Russian and American space agencies for such a project.
“It’s like any other company, we have to knock on doors,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “But we have a lot of stuff in the pipeline. A lot of work with the European Space Agency and the EU is already being done here.”
The company has 12 employees but Mr Fitzpatrick envisages the number will rise to 65 when the 10-year programme is completed.
He said the plan included increasing the number of dishes on the site from seven to 20.
Mr Kenny spent more than an hour viewing operations at the site and seemed genuinely andimpressed with the battery of technology on show.
“Ireland is a maritimenation with a key location on the northwest frontier of Europe,” said Mr Kenny.
“We have an important role to play in the increasingly significant area of maritime surveillance. The location of a global player such as exactEarth is a positive move and a first step into this domain, reflecting international confidence in Ireland as a location and its ability to deliver.”
