Andreas K. Dideriksen ^1* Mads F. Andersen ² Julian Priest ^2,3 Nikolaj F. Eriksen ^4,5 Mads T. Frandsen ^4,5 Claus Melvad ^1,6 Tobias F. Rasmussen ⁷ Noah H. Nielsen ² Cecillie T. Strømsnes ² Mads J. Ahlebæk ^4,5 Sigrid Samsing ⁸ Thomas B. Larsen ⁸ Jeppe Don ⁶ Lasse A. Pedersen ⁶ Rune H. Jacobsen ⁷ Søren Rysgaard ¹ Jung Min Kim ⁷ Robert Bayer ⁹ Caroline Christensen ¹⁰ Emil Fredsted Christiansen ⁶ Izabella Katharina Gosvig-Leach ¹⁰ Rasmus Gramstrup ⁷ Bóas Hermansson ¹¹ Jesper Hesselvig ⁶ Jonas M. Jakobsen ¹² Daniel G. Kjellberg ⁹ Magnus S. Lind ⁶ Jeppe Lindhard ⁹ Mads Mikkelsen ² Oliver Millinge ⁷ Tara M. Moltesen ⁶ Sebastian D. Negendahl ² Alexander Björn Kerff Nielsen ¹² Gustav B. Nielsen ¹¹ Maja C. Pedersen ¹⁰ Alexander S. Platz ⁷ Paul Rosero ⁹ Sofia Savic ¹⁰ Ívar Ó. Sigurðsson ⁹ Gustav Skjernov ¹⁰ Nikolaj Sørensen ⁹ Samuel G. Sørensen ² Astrid G. Theil ² Jacob B. Thomsen ² Nicolaj Valsted ⁹ Anna Vestergaard ¹⁰ Christoffer Karoff ^10,13,2

• ¹ Arctic Research Centre, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
• ² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
• ³ DASYA, IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
• ⁴ Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, Faculty of Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
• ⁵ SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
• ⁶ Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
• ⁷ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
• ⁸ Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
• ⁹ Department of Computer Science, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
• ¹⁰ Department of Geoscience, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
• ¹¹ Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
• ¹² The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
• ¹³ iCLIMATE Aarhus University Interdisciplinary Centre for Climate Change, Aarhus, Denmark, Aarhus, Denmark

The severe impact of global warming, especially in the arctic region, have a multitude of consequences spanning from sea-level rises and freshening of the ocean, to significant changes to the animal life, biodiversity and species distribution. As the arctic regions are inherently remote and can be both hazardous and difficult to reach, research to improve our understanding of the climate change impact is often limited to short term field-campaigns. Here we present the Danish DISCO-2 student CubeSat mission, designed to meet the growing need for an Earth-observing platform. This mission leverages the rapid advancements in CubeSat technology over the past decades to overcome the limitations of traditional fieldwork campaigns. DISCO-2 will assist on-going arctic climate research with a payload of optical and thermal cameras in combination with novel in-orbit data analysis capabilities. It will further be capable of performing photogrammetric observations to determine ice volumes from deteriorating glaciers and provide surface temperatures, enabling studies of heat transfer between glaciers and arctic fjords. As a student satellite, the payload capabilities will also be offered to novel student research ideas throughout the mission life time. The modularity and wide range of of-the-shelf-components for CubeSats has facilitated an immense opportunity to tailor this earth observing CubeSat to accommodate specific scientific goals and further provided students at the participating universities with an unparalleled possibility to go from an initial research idea to a running CubeSat mission.