Space is the place for Skytek

06-12-2007

by Charlie Taylor

It's not uncommon for indigenous firms to seek new territories once they've established themselves here in Ireland. But for one Irish firm, space is the place.

Dublin-based Skytek has developed core technology for the operation of the European Space Agency's Columbus Module, which is due to take off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday.

The firm's International Procedure Viewer (iPV) system has already been in use on-board the International Space Station (ISS) for the past two years where it is used to store, control and manage all procedures relating to routine daily tasks and mission critical events such as space walks and emergency procedures.

During the past few months, hundreds of Columbus procedures have been uploaded to the system where it will be used by astronauts to manage a number of new ground-breaking experiments on board the module once in space. These experiments include investigating the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body.

The Columbus module is the first European laboratory devoted to long-term research in space.

Once lift-off has taken place, astronauts will be accessing the iPV system on a daily basis, via laptops located in the module. The Columbus ground control centre located near Munich, Germany will monitor all activities of the astronauts undertaken through iPV and will be able to retrieve scientific results through data and video feeds.

Additionally, all procedures and reference material relating to Columbus operations will be stored on the system so that astronauts can be guided by iPV through everything from operation of the scientific equipment to maintenance and repair of critical systems of the Columbus module.

"We've been working with the ESA for around nine years. It started with a small project for the proposed Columbus module to develop a system to assist astronauts to control procedures for a particular experiment and we really proved ourselves with that and have gained other projects as a result," Skytek's chief executive Dr Sarah Bourke told ENN.

"The application assists astronauts to undertake complex tasks and procedures, so say for example, an experiment malfunctions, the technology will walk astronauts through troubleshooting to identify what the exact problem is so that it can be fixed. The system will also allow ground control centre to have a look at what's going on and send up new procedures to the crew if necessary," she added.

The iPV project has been a long time in development and is the first time ESA has used Irish software technology on board the ISS.

Skytek originally developed a non-commercial space-only version of the software for the European Space Agency. That application, known as COReCT (Critical Operations e-based Control Tool) was adopted by NASA and the other space station partners in 2003.

The company is to launch a commercial version of the application for use outside of the space industry, under the name AECIM, early next year.

"While the technology was originally developed for use in space it works in any industry which is highly regulated and has a lot of procedures. The first area we've looked at is aircraft maintenance and our application, which has been developed in association with Lufthansa Technik and is currently in final testing with Shannon Aerospace, will eliminate all paper from scheduled maintenance operations," said Dr Bourke.

The firm is also collaborating with Astrium Bremen on developing a system for the Columbus LAPAP MK II project. This system is the next generation crew interface for Columbus and the new application will provide direct command and control of all subsystems through graphical displays on laptops.

Skytek isn't the only Irish company engaged in designing applications for use in space. Over the past five years, more than 60 Irish companies have engaged in European Space Agency (ESA) programmes with the support of Enterprise Ireland. During that time, firms have won contracts worth a total of EUR25 million with spin-off business estimated at EUR100million.