Back on the 1st of December 2023, Ireland's first satellite called EIRSAT-1 was launched on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Now 22-months later in early September 2025, it's mission comes to a close as it is expected to burn up on the 4th of September in the earths atmosphere.
At the time of writing, it's altitude is about 220kms which is well within the ionosphere and where it will start to experience significant drag from air molecules.
Update - Thurs 4th Sept 2025...
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14:09 UTC - Heard over Brazil...
Still receiving EIRSAT-1 loud and clear over UCD Dublin this morning at approx 160km altitude. Thanks to the radio amateur community @SatNOGS @LibreSpace_Fnd for tracking and sharing reports in these final hours of the mission.
Thanks to Department of Enterprise and Enterprise Ireland for your support. Minister Alan Dillon TD: “I am very proud that the mission was supported by my Department, through our membership of ESA (European Space Agency). EIRSAT-1 demonstrates the value of membership of ESA for a small country, such as Ireland"
11:00 UTC - Change in height (2nd Sep ~230kms, 3rd Sep 220kms, 4th Sep 190kms). Latest projection is that EIRSAT-1 will burn up sometime between 11:09 to 19:09 UTC.
09:29 UTC - Heard over Belarus. Note the doppler shift on the signal as it slopes to the left.
VU2JEK in India decoded this message around 06:30UTC
The term 'Slán go fóill' is a traditional Irish parting message which means 'Bye for now'.
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During its mission, EIRSAT-1 carried three payloads / experiments. One was a Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) to detect gamma ray bursts, one was the ENBIO module, a materials testing platform to test the performance of thermal management coatings in LEO for the first time and the final one was the the Wave Based Control (WBC) module, which tested and validated a novel control system for advanced satellite pointing in space.
The successful validation of its Wave-Based Control system was one of the more interesting ones. The software-led payload that lets satellites fine-tune their orientation mid-orbit. This was developed at University College Dublin (UCD) and the systm uses magnetorquers (tiny coils that push against Earth’s magnetic field) and a clever algorithm inspired by spinning tops.
Once the satellite starts spinning, the gyroscopic stability lets the controller nudge it in any direction. The result is that pointing accuracy within a few degrees is achieved. Dr. David McKeown of UCD called it a “major milestone.”
Some satellites wish to use the very high communication bandwidths available by using lasers as opposed to microwave links and precise pointing is critical for such space space missions.
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