Preparatory testing for Ireland’s first space mission, EIRSAT-1, is taking place at the ESA’s Hertz antenna test chamber in Noordwijk, Holland.

The Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 (EIRSAT-1) is being built by students and staff of University College Dublin, who are participating in ESA Education’s Fly Your Satellite! programme, reports the agency.

The miniature satellite measures 22 x 10 x 10 cm.

Normally the EIRSAT-1 student team would have joined the test campaign in person, says the ESA, but Covid-19 restrictions have prevented this. Instead the Irish team delivered their self-made Antenna Deployment Module (ADM) plus a mock-up of the satellite body, along with detailed test preparation procedures.

“Very often when antenna performance is assessed on a stand-alone basis, the results are not necessarily representative,” explains Peter de Maagt, heading ESA’s Antenna & Sub-mm Waves section. “The body of a satellite can make an enormous impact, so it’s really important to verify the antenna performance in this way.”

ESA’s metal-walled Hybrid European Radio Frequency and Antenna Test Zone (Hertz) at the Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, shut off from all external influences for radio testing.

“We thought it was important to have some ambitious science payloads, beyond simply achieving a working satellite,” says David Murphy, systems engineer for the project.

“So EIRSAT-1 carries an advanced gamma ray detector. Developed through an ESA-funded project, this GMOD ‘Gamma-ray Module’ detects gamma ray bursts from deep space as well as ‘terrestrial gamma flashes’ originating within the atmosphere, linked to lightning strikes.”