There are hopes that Ireland's first-ever satellite will tell us more about how the universe is formed.
Dr David McKeown, Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, UCD, explained there will be a Gamma-ray Burst Detector onboard to do this.
"So big explosions happen in the universe - like neutron stars and black holes collide, lots of energy comes out, goes across the universe, will come into our satellite and we'll detect that. It also has some thermal protection ... So we're testing how they perform in lowered orbits."
The satellite is called EIRSAT-1, which stands for Educational Irish Research Satellite 1.
It is a flagship project of UCD's Centre for Space Research and is expected to be launched in the next few months.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr McKeown said that space is changing and small countries such as Ireland can be part of this 'new space' because there is room for more innovation.
EIRSTAT-1 will be launched 520 kilometres into the sky from the European spaceport in French Guiana and will then orbit the Earth for around five years before being returned to UCD.
The launch window is halfway between January and February.
Dr McKeown said the satellite also has a control system that will enable it to turn into a magnet and react against the Earth's magnetic field.
He said the satellite is small and the first step in building bigger detectors.
A poem is also engraved on the satellite, about home and the universe, he added.
"The poem was written working with Junior Cert libraries and DEIS schools, and each of these students wrote a poem. And that was all brought together then with the UCD English Department. And they curated it into this poem all about home and our place here in the universe."
The launch of the country's first-ever satellite moved a step closer following discussions at Cabinet this week.
The satellite, EIRSAT-1, was designed, developed, built and tested at University College Dublin.
