• Question: When do you think the first Irish satellite will be released?

    Asked by 292spcm32 to Willi on 23 Feb 2018.
    • Photo: William O'Connor

      William O'Connor answered on 23 Feb 2018:

      We hope it will be released early in the year 2019 or 2020, that’s one or two years from now.
      It can take many years to plan a new satellite.
      In this case, we are still at the stage of planning and designing the satellite.
      The European Space Agency (called ESA) will then decide whether the design is good enough.
      Then we have to build it and test it, and that could take a year.
      Then we send it to ESA and it joins a queue to be taken up to the International Space Station.
      And then it is released into orbit from there!

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