Aarhus University Seal

DISCO


Signing of DISCO-2 order

The student satellite DISCO-2 is now one step further towards launch in Summer 2024. On 10 January 2023 the contract confirming the order was signed at the company Space Inventor in Aalborg at a small ceremony with bubbles! DISCO-2 is a collaboration between the Danish universitites AU, AAU, ITU and SDU. The satellite is expected to be finished this September and it will be launched in a polar orbit during Summer 2024. Photography of especially areas in the Arctic, supporting research in climate changes is the main purpose.

DISCO-2 is a 10 x 10 x 30 cm cubesat. Illustration: Space Inventor / Ali Hamdoun / Magnus Sejer Lind 


The Money is there - We're going in!

"a totally wild experience," says physics student Astrid Theil. She is a part of the team from Aarhus University and the IT-University of Copenhagen that has now started in earnest with the construction of their very own satellite, DISCO-2. The money is in and now the nitty gritty work has seriously begun. Launch in the Summer of 2023 if all goes as planned.  A press release giving a status of the project can be found here (in Danish).

"en helt vild oplevelse" udtaler fysikstuderende Astrid Theil. Hun er med i det team fra Aarhus Universitet og IT-Universitetet i København, som nu skal hårdt igang med at bygge deres helt egen satellit DISCO-2. Pengene er sikret, og så kan de studerende gå i gang med for alvor at få fingrene ned i projektet. Opsendelse i sommeren 2023, om alt går vel. Pressemeddelelsen med status for projektet pr marts 2022 kan findes her (på Dansk).

The DISCO project will rely partly on crowdfunding - a new first!

Sponsor the next AU student satellite

You and everyone else can support climate research if you can spare a dime

The second satellite DISCO 2 in the national Danish student satellite program is being designed by students at Aarhus University and the IT University in Copenhagen. In collaboration with Arctic Research Centre and iClimate it will contribute to the study of climate changes in Greenland. This satellite is the most ambitious student satellite to now, and YOU can help making the mission a reality.

The mission budget has almost been secured via generous donations from Industriens Fond and Thomas B. Triges Fond (covering the satellite, ground station and launch), but a bit is still missing. That is why the team behind DISCO 2 had a bright idea: Crowdfunding.
This has never been tried before in the present context and it took some time and a lot of legal discussions, but now we are ready.

You can donate your part via this link.


Det særlige bomærke for DISCO 2 missionen er tegnet af Asbjørn L. Christensen.
 
All donations, large or small are welcome. Instead of buying that extra cup of coffee or that draught beer that you really didn't need at the café or the bar, you can give a relatively small amount to our mission (or a huge one, depending on your thirst!), helping not only to strenghten the competences of our students within space technology but also to help research in climate changes.

Support DISCO 2, and don't forget to tell it to family and friends!

Do you need a little help convincing them? Try this videolink.


The Danish Student CubeSat Program DISCO reveals mission patch

For the last months, the Danish Student CubeSat Program (DISCO) has been running a competition for students to design the most awesome mission patch and we are now very excited to announce the winner. The winner mission patch was created by Marc Breiner Sørensen.

 Marc’s winning mission patch shows some of the important aspects of the DISCO project, such as the launch with the Falcon 9 rocket and a CubeSat. Another nice twist to the design is that the Earth below is a giant disco ball. DISCO is a collaboration between four Danish universities –  Aalborg University, Aarhus University, University of Southern Denmark and the IT University of Copenhagen – and their initials have also found their way to the mission patch.

 Last Friday, Marc, who study physics and astronomy at Aarhus University, received his award for the most awesome mission patch: an Astro Pi kit consisting of a Raspberry Pi 3, a Sense HAT card with a number of built-in measuring instruments, a camera and a power supply. Photo: CK

The first three CubeSats in DISCO are funded by the Danish Industry Foundation and the first of these will be launched by Momentus next summer. The mission patch designed by Marc is for the overall DISCO program. Later, it is foreseen that the individual CubeSats in the DISCO program will get their own mission patches in addition to the DISCO patch.


Danish Student CubeSat Program

DISCO is Denmark’s national CubeSat program and is a collaboration between by Aalborg University, Aarhus University, University of Southern Denmark, IT University, the House of Natural Science and the Danish Industry Foundation as well as a number of space companies including GomSpace and Space Inventor to give students the opportunity to work with science and space technology in a practical way.

The goal is to increase the number of candidates from danish universities with competences within space. To do that we want to use CubeSats to increase the interest in STEM and space from Danish high-school students. The aim of DISCO is therefore to have a continuous series of students CubeSats from Danish universities. We have received 4.25 MDKK form the Danish Industry Foundation to secure the launch of the first three.

In order to increase the interest in STEM and space among Danish high-school students, we will build a number of mobile ground stations and develop a teaching program that will allow high-school students to communicate with microsatellites.

You can read more about the project at discosat.dk and at our facebook page.