Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE NEW €1.5 million headquarters of Irish space technology firm EnBio was officially opened in Clonmel yesterday.
The Space Technology Centre – whose management team all graduated from Irish universities – will employ 12 new people between now and the end of 2016 as staff work to produce vital parts for a European Space Agency mission to the Sun.
The firm will be producing ‘next generation’ surface treatments designed to cope with the harsh conditions of outer space.
They’ll be used on board the ESA ‘Solar Orbiter’ which has been scheduled to launch in 2018. The spacecraft will carry a suite of 10 state-of-the art instruments to observe the surface of the star, and study the changes that take place in solar winds.
EnBio’s coatings will protect all of the sun-facing surfaces of the ESA craft, allowing scientists to get closer to the sun than any previous mission – and in the process making the firm’s coating the closest man-made object to the Sun.
How does it work?
Well, the company plans use a patented technology platform, CoBlast – invented by CEO John O’Donoghue – to produce a unique ‘SolarBlack’ product, which it will then deploy on the satellite surfaces.
Here comes the science…
CoBlast replaces the oxide layer of a metal – typically aluminium or titanium – with a thin surface which fuses to the metal in a single, environmentally friendly process step, requiring no chemicals or thermal input.
The firm has been “setting new records” for getting a technology from concept to flight-qualified status by the ESA, O’Donoghue said.
A complementary ceramic surface, ‘SolarWhite’, reflective white coating, has also been developed by EnBio.
Following its launch in three year’s time, the Solar Orbiter will take another three-and-a-half years to reach its operational orbit around the Sun, modifying its path by making close flybys of Earth and Venus.
The orbit will take it to within 43 million km of the Sun – closer than Mercury, the innermost planet.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
That’s some jolly up for the lads
They might learn what a real riot is
I thought Gardai were understaffed. But any opportunity to impress our EU masters and hey presto we find 56 that are not needed.
Jesus can we not comment on any article now……the CAMHS article below….Tipperary branch told my 16 year old unless your going to kill yourself, we can’t help you……I had to bring my daughter to G.P 8 times in a couple of months and paid for private counselling…but hey ho there’s an endless pit of money for anyone that’s not Irish…
@Clare Power: Just walk into the IPAS office, say you’re from Georgia and lost your passport. Tell them you’re being victimized because you’re gay. Hey presto, free medical card!
@YKwkSIqW: it would be funny if it wasn’t the truth
@Clare Power: It’s complete lunacy.
@Clare Power: Hope things work out fir you and your family and you get the support required
@F T: sorted now thank God
@Clare Power: piss poor this Journal
@Clare Power: my daughter went through the CHAMS system for a number of years. She got absolutely nothing from it. Constant waiting, then cancellations, sometimes within a half hour of her appointment. It’s a total train crash.
The French police will eat them alive. And they’ll show them how to be real police
I hope they’ll get a good orientation course. They’ll need to know where to get chips after hours and where they can scab freebies.
Could we get a dig out in Dublin from the gendarme
They don’t need them at the Portal now
Law & Order in complete tatters at home, yet the Garda Siochana are able to send 56 Gardai to France. I recall an incident last year where a young female student was being assaulted in broad daylight by a male & other students couldn’t get anyone to come out from the Divisional HQ 10 mins away. Sadly the Gardai Siochana has become politicized & these type of ventures along with incidents such as punishing a Garda for giving a bike to an elderly man or hitting innocent people with batons in Newtown only serve to alienate the public even further. All just, to look good in Europe.
This is great in theory but can’t imagine that the Irish Po Po have the competence to police an event of such magnitude. They go into hiding at the best times. Key stone cops. “Dig out”
It’s great to see EU countries helping each other in so many ways
Probably for the best as the Irish ferals are throwing a tantrum when the law gets applied to them.
Isn’t France the country who wants to send troops on the ground in Ukraine? But needs foreign nations to lend a hand to secure France during the Olympics? That country and its boytoy president are a joke.
@Ryan Hulin (ryansjourneys): drag us along with them headcase
What they going to do, hit people with a breakfast roll?
have your say