{"id":373099,"date":"2026-03-30T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373099\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:46:08","slug":"company-co-founded-by-tipp-man-to-test-robots-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373099\/","title":{"rendered":"Company co-founded by Tipp man to test robots in space"},"content":{"rendered":"

A robotics company co-founded by Tipperary man Jamie Palmer, which is building a robotic labour force for space, has signed a deal to test its technology on board the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Icarus Robotics has agreed a mission management contract with Voyager Technologies to test its free-flying robotic platform ‘Joyride’.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, Voyager will oversee payload integration, safety certification, launch coordination, on-orbit operations planning and real-time mission execution support.<\/p>\n

The International Space Station demonstration will take place in early 2027.<\/p>\n

Icarus Robotics uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create human-controlled robots that can learn and carry out tasks in space.<\/p>\n

“Icarus Robotics represents the next generation of space builders and provide the turnkey solution for those seeking reliable, flight-proven access to space,” said Matt Maga\u00f1a, President, Space, Defence & National Security, Voyager.<\/p>\n

The company’s first-generation robots are operated remotely by humans, a first step toward embodied AI – machines that learn from human demonstrations and eventually carry out complex space tasks autonomously.<\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/p>\n

Icarus was co-founded by Mr Palmer who was born in Tyrone and moved to Tipperary at the age of five.<\/p>\n

The company’s other co-founder Ethan Barajas was a participant in Voyager’s NASA HUNCH programme when he was in school.<\/p>\n

“It is very full circle to return the favour and deliver a robotic platform to help make the ISS and future commercial stations like Starlab smarter\u2013autonomous, free-flying, and ready to operate where humans can\u2019t easily go,” Mr Barajas said.<\/p>\n

According to Icarus, labour has become a pressing bottleneck in space missions with astronauts spending much of their time on mundane tasks such as cargo handling and equipment checks.<\/p>\n

The robots being designed by Icarus will have built-in intelligence allowing them to physically interact with their environment and learn, adapt, and evolve while in space.<\/p>\n

They will be able to take on a full range of space labour such as intravehicular activities, tasks performed inside spacecraft, and eventually scaling to large-scale orbital construction, such as maintaining satellites and infrastructure in space.<\/p>\n

In September 2025, Icarus announced the completion of a $6.1m funding round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A robotics company co-founded by Tipperary man Jamie Palmer, which is building a robotic labour force for space,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-373099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}