{"id":2016,"date":"2025-09-05T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2025\/09\/05\/eirsat-1-one-small-satellite-one-giant-leap-for-irish-spaceflight\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:55:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:55:00","slug":"eirsat-1-one-small-satellite-one-giant-leap-for-irish-spaceflight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/2025\/09\/05\/eirsat-1-one-small-satellite-one-giant-leap-for-irish-spaceflight\/","title":{"rendered":"EIRSAT-1: One small satellite, one giant leap for Irish spaceflight!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2025\/09\/eirsat-1_team_with_a_satellite_model\/26858668-4-eng-GB\/EIRSAT-1_team_with_a_satellite_model_card_full.jpg\" alt=\"EIRSAT-1 team with a satellite model\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eirsat1.ie\/\" target=\"_blank\">EIRSAT-1<\/a>, developed by a team of students and staff at University College Dublin through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Education\/CubeSats_-_Fly_Your_Satellite\/About_Fly_Your_Satellite!\" target=\"_blank\">ESA\u2019s Fly Your Satellite! programme<\/a>, has made history as Ireland\u2019s first satellite. Over more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mTrfaTchBWk\" target=\"_blank\">six years of work<\/a>, the mission grew from an ambitious proposal into a fully-fledged spaceflight success story \u2013 and an educational inspiration. With a long list of successes behind it and its mission accomplished, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Enabling_Support\/Preparing_for_the_Future\/Discovery_and_Preparation\/CubeSats\" target=\"_blank\">CubeSat<\/a> has now deorbited. EIRSAT-1 sent its final beacons on 4 September and burned up on re-entry of Earth\u2019s atmosphere. The deorbiting occurred in line with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Space_Safety\/Space_Debris\/Mitigating_space_debris_generation\" target=\"_blank\">ESA\u2019s commitment to the sustainable use of space<\/a> \u2013 which includes minimizing space debris and ensuring that missions leave no long-term footprint in orbit.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EIRSAT-1, developed by a team of students and staff at University College Dublin through ESA\u2019s Fly Your Satellite! programme, has made history as Ireland\u2019s first satellite. Over more than six years of work, the mission grew from an ambitious proposal into a fully-fledged spaceflight success story \u2013 and an educational inspiration. With a long list [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copernicus.gis.is\/homepage\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}