DISCO
Danish Student Cubesat Programme
DISCO
Danish Student Cubesat Programme
The Danish Student Cubesat Program (DISCO) is a national Danish program initiated to increase the interest in space and, thereby, number of candidates from the Danish universities with competences within space.
Overall, the main goals of the program are:
- To increase the number of skilled candidates with the right competences for the Danish space industry and high-tech companies.
- To increase the interest and recruiting for STEM educations in Denmark among girls and boys.
- To place Denmark on the world map within space and education.
- To secure a stable pipeline of start-ups for ESA BIC Denmark
In detail, DISCO is centered around the design, construction, test, launch, and utilization of CubeSats - small, cube-shaped satellites measuring 10 x 10 x 10 cm with a mass of 1 kg. CubeSats are both inexpensive to launch and can be utilized for many different purposes - for example, research, Earth observation, communication, and testing of new technologies.
Furthermore, CubeSats are particularly well-suited for educational purposes, as they require collaboration, are interdisciplinary, and possess a high degree of “X-factor”. Until now, the launch of CubeSats from the Danish universities has been borne by individuals and limited funds. With DISCO, a national organization is being created for the first time, which will collaborate to create a pipeline of CubeSats-based educational courses at Danish universities.
THREE DISCO SATELLITES
In collaboration with a range of partners, the mission is to develop and launch three DISCO satellites:
DISCO-1
The program will be initiated with the launch of a 1U CubeSat, DISCO-1, with a Falcon-9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in 2022. The work with this satellite will be led by Aalborg University and the satellite will contain a digital repeater, which among other high school students will be able to test with specially developed mobile ground stations.
DISCO-2
The second satellite in the DISCO program, DISCO-2, is set to launch in 2023 and will be led by a collaboration between Aarhus University and the IT University of Copenhagen. Students from the two universities are involved in all aspects of the mission from idea to design, construction, testing, and ultimately the operation once the satellite is launched into space.
DISCO-3
The third satellite, DISCO-3, will be led by a collaboration between Aalborg University and the University of Southern Denmark and is set to be launched in 2024.
A mission patch for the first two DISCO missions have been created. You can see the patches for DISCO-1 and DISCO-2 below.
NEW POSSIBILITES
The satellites will include a number of smaller student experiments as well as serve as a communication station for radio amateurs around the world.
One of the ideas is to investigate the possibility of using the same frequency as a regular wireless network, i.e. 2.4 GHz, to communicate between satellites. This could allow some of the subsequent DISCO satellites to send much larger amounts of data down to Earth. The data could e.g. be a picture that shows the development in the use of the Arctic regions as the ice around Greenland disappears.
DISCO is supported by The Danish Industry Foundation with 4.25 mio. DKK and is a collaboration between 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.
Project Facts
PROJECT NAME
Danish Student Cubesat Programme (DISCO)
EFFECTIVE START/END DATE
2020 - 2025
PROJECT PARTNERS
- Aalborg University
- Aarhus University
- University of Southern Denmark
- IT University of Copenhagen
- ESA BIC Denmark
AAU Space