IRISH ASTRONAUTICS COMPANY LAUNCHES SPACE  EXPERIMENT

COMPETITION FOR SCHOOLS WORLDWIDE

Titusville, Fla. – October 19, 2001 - As a part of United Nations World Space Week, Astrocourier LLC, an off-site client at the NASA/Florida Business Incubation Center, is launching a worldwide competition for school space science experiments. The competition, Send It To Space, is part of an all-Ireland contribution to the event, designed to inspire young people worldwide to dream up simple but clever ideas for small experiments that explore the effects of space exposure on all types of objects or materials.

Though scientific investigation will be important, imagination and vision are the key things the distinguished panel of judges will be reviewing. A full detail of competition rules and regulations, guidelines, dates, judges and prizes can be found on Astrocourier’s website: www.astrocourier.com beginning November 15, 2001. Schools must register online by the end of November 2001. The company is also seeking sponsorship for additional prizes.

Astrocourier LLC, a subsidiary of Astrocourier (Ireland) Ltd., is working to develop a new generation of compact carriers for transporting small science experiments to and from orbit on the Space Shuttle and other launch vehicles. By doing this, the company will reduce spaceflight prices for experimenters to the lowest levels possible. Astrocourier aims to send the 1^st prize-winning experiment from the competition to space on a free round-trip flight in 2004.

Established by the Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) in 1996, the Florida/NASA Business Incubation Center helps accelerate the success of technology-based, small businesses by providing affordable space, shared office services and fulfilling enterprise development needs to give companies a strong competitive edge. The incubator is managed through a joint partnership of Florida’s TRDA, NASA-Kennedy Space Center and Brevard Community College. The Incubator is located at Brevard Community College, Titusville campus, at 1311 N. Highway U.S. 1, Building 3.