The Irish government has awarded funding of €7.9 million to the Ireland-based National Space Subsystems and Payloads Initiative (NSSPI) consortium.

Irish government funds NSSPI consortium for optical space comms

The investment was made through its Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF), and the Dublin-based Ubotica – a space AI specialist – is among the members of the group.

The grant will be invested in the consortium’s development of space technology “that encompasses optical communications in space, autonomous satellites and spacecraft, and payload modelling, simulation and test research support,” said the company.

NSSPI
NSSPI project consortium members comprise: University College Dublin (UCD), Realtime Technologies, Ubotica Technologies, Mbryonics, Intel, ÉireComposites Teoranta and Equal1 Laboratories Ireland (a UCD spin-out).

The NSSPI project is led by Dr David McKeown, a lecturer in Applied Dynamics at the UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and the lead for Spacecraft Structures, Dynamics and Control at the UCD Centre for Space Research.

Dr McKeown is also the Engineering Manager of EIRSAT-1 (Educational Irish Research Satellite-1), Ireland’s first-ever satellite, which launched 7 December 2023.

Ubotica
Ubotica contrasts conventional Earth Observation – providing a singular moment of data that may need terrestrial post-processing to yield any insights – with actionable Live Earth Intelligence

“Instead of static snapshots, SPACE:AI provides a continuous live stream of actionable insights generated onboard through a full stack of Edge AI technology that can perform inference on diverse inputs such as optical, hyperspectral, and radar data,” said the company.

For example, its CogniSAT-CRC system combines AI processing – a neural network-based Cloud Detection and Removal algorithm – with lossless image compression, so that only useful images are transmitted to the ground station, efficiently as possible.

Founded in 2017, Ubotica is headquartered in Dublin and has a team of Computer Vision Engineers in Spain and Canada, and a team of space systems experts in the Netherlands, based in the Aerospace Innovation Hub at the TU Delft Campus.

“We are thrilled to be part of the successful NSSPI consortium and grateful to benefit from generous funding from the DTIF for our Live Earth Intelligence technology,” said Fintan Buckley, Co-Founder and CEO of Ubotica Technologies.

“Advances in space technology are progressing at an astonishing speed and we are excited to be at the forefront at this important time for space innovation.”