Ireland’s potential for upstream space leadership

The commercial space age is witnessing the creation of an entirely new value chain, in which companies can build new business models around launching hardware into space (upstream), supporting space-based hardware from earth (midstream), and applying space data to business problems on earth (downstream). Christopher Brown and our Space Advisory team explore how Ireland's talents could be used upstream.

The world’s most developed and viable space industry clusters will combine all three of these elements, which are strongly interdependent. Whilst Ireland’s ability to compete in both the midstream and downstream segments is demonstrably strong, it cannot afford to neglect its upstream potential. 

According to KPMG research, general awareness of the commercial space sector is low across Irish industry. Many Irish businesses are unaware that the government even has a specific space strategy. Enterprises and institutions that are already thinking about space tend to focus on downstream opportunities, which dovetail most obviously with some of Ireland’s key strengths, including software engineering and data analytics. 

Whilst Irish businesses are certainly well placed to develop profitable use cases for space data in major sectors like agri, pharma, and financial services, such downstream business models are generally dependent on space-based assets owned and launched in other jurisdictions, leaving Ireland dependent.

The long-term security of the island of Ireland’s space ecosystem could therefore benefit from expanded domestic presence in the upstream market segment. Indeed, the 2019 National Space Strategy acknowledges the ‘interdependence between upstream and downstream technology’, but fails to thoroughly spell out a clear vision for upstream development.