Denmark in space through 60 years - exploration, new technologies, and climate monitoring

Science from space

But there was a future—partly due to the establishment of the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), whose very purpose was to ensure small countries’ access to space research and the benefits that the space age enticed: Fast, global communication, meteorological predictions, traffic control, and basic research. Unlike its successor, ESA, ESRO was focused on scientific missions. The scientific interest in space was also reflected in the establishment of the Danish Space Research Institute (DRI), which focused more on research rather than technology development. Together, DTU, the Danish Meteorological Institute, and a committee under the Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy agreed that Danish space research was better served in an independent organization under the Ministry of Education, as the funds from the international space collaborations increased.

Meanwhile, there was an increasing global interest in turning the gaze of space missions towards the Earth. On the one hand, the first climate satellites demonstrated the potentials of space-based measurements of temperature, atmosphere, ice sheets, and other global parameters. This strengthened interest in climate research.

On a more cultural level, the colour photograph of the Earth ‘Earthrise’ taken from Apollo 8 in 1968 became an icon of the growing environmental movement.

“We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth,” astronaut William Anders said 50 years later about the photo, which came to represent the Earth as a coherent and fragile ecosystem. The scientific exploration of space gave us knowledge about the Earth.

Small satellites take over

On the technology side, launches of small satellites became popular for space agencies in the 1980s, which took the focus away from the big moon missions. The rapidly developing microtechnology (computer chips, etc.) made satellites lighter and launches cheaper, so small countries could also participate.

In the meantime, ESRO had become ESA, which boosted the growing number of Danish space companies. Through ESA contracts, a market was created for satellite mission subcontractors, and this created new opportunities to test technologies in space.

Microelectronics also had good conditions at DTU, and among the electrical engineers, space technologies slowly crept back onto the agenda. Experiences from antenna research came into play on ESA missions, and ideas about star cameras and magnetic field measurements began to grow among the researchers.

Denmark becomes a space nation

Subcontractors, specialists, foreign contacts, innovative ideas, and the willingness to work across the board. In the 1990s, all the ingredients for a Danish satellite were present. With the launch of the Ørsted satellite—which was to measure the Earth’s magnetic field—Denmark officially became a space nation in 1999.

The Ørsted project originated in part from the competences at DTU. Here, the world’s first autonomous star camera had been invented, which with a camera and a digital catalogue could navigate the night sky. At the same time, they had a close collaboration with DRI, where knowledge of materials came into play in the development of a magnetic field meter.

The Ørsted satellite was a special scientific mission. It was common to cram the satellites with as many technologies for demonstration as possible, but the Ørsted satellite had a clear scientific purpose. Equipped with a star camera, the Ørsted satellite retrieved solid data on Earth of international interest. Magnetometers were nothing new, but it was innovative to place the target device on a fold-out boom, far away from the electronic noise of the ‘body’ of the satellite. The characteristic appearance can be experienced in DTU’s library on Lyngby Campus, where a 1:1 model is on display.

Space engineers

The Ørsted project has since been called a highly successful public-private partnership. Although the competences were available, they did not yet have space engineering study programmes or experience at system level. And it created a good framework for innovation and innovative thinking compared to ESA and NASA, which are large, well-established organizations with fixed workflows.

Even Andreas Mogensen, who has since become Denmark’s first astronaut, could not choose space engineering as an education, but with a Danish satellite orbiting the globe, this was accelerated. Learning took place across all the collaborating institutions, which lifted the Danish competences and laid a foundation for the future development of Denmark as a space nation. With the appointment of the first professor of space technology in 2005, John Leif Jørgensen, and later the establishment of DTU Space in 2007, the framework was set for DTU engineers to also be able to educate themselves in space technology. Today, Andreas Mogensen is an honorary professor at DTU Space, where he shares his experiences with students on the degree programme in Earth and Space Physics and Engineering.

Missions with focus on climate

The past 10 years have been eventful for the Danish space industry: A Danish astronaut, several national space strategies, and even a space act. It turned out to make good sense that Denmark was involved. But a lot has changed. In the age of satellites and commercial space travel, the focus has been more on the Earth. It was space observations, among other things, that led to the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer, and there is a broad consensus that knowledge about the atmosphere and the Earth’s climate is critically necessary, which was not the case at the beginning of the space age.

At DTU, several major missions have also been climate-focused. NASA’s first GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission in 2002 is considered one of the most important climate missions to date, and data from the two satellites form the basis for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports. Here, DTU’s instruments have contributed to a comprehensive climate mapping and sensational results that show how much ice sheet Greenland loses each year.

In 2018, ASIM (Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor) surpassed Ørsted as the largest Danish space project to date. The 314-kilogram instrument is mounted on the International Space Station to gather knowledge about lightning and its importance for the Earth’s climate, and Andreas Mogensen helped do the preparatory work during his first mission in 2015. In an interview with the Danish newspaper Information, he recalled the so-called “overview effect” from the Apollo mission:

“It’s beautiful to see the Earth from space. But there’s another side:”