Beyond Arctic Edge
A west-to-east traverse of the Greenland Ice Cap, planned for 1 May–3 June 2026 serving as an exploration platform: combining human factors and endurance, geographic and astrophysical surveying, digital archeology and preservation, and public storytelling across one of the world’s most remote and extreme landscapes
This is an Explorers Club Flag Expedition!
The Explorers Club Flag is a symbol of courage and fidelity. The award of the flag is a significant accomplishment. Since 1918, the flag has been carried to all of the Earth’s continents, as well as under the sea and into the stars. These include flags carried to the Everest summit, Mariana Trench North and South Poles, and aboard the Apollo 8 and Apollo 15 missions.
The Experiments
Cosmic Radiation in Greenland
Objective
To measure secondary cosmic radiation across the Greenland Ice Cap using a lightweight mobile detector, creating rare over-ice radiation data from a high-latitude environment that is difficult to sample through fixed monitoring stations alone.
Description
During the crossing, I will carry a compact radiation detector as part of the sled system. The sensor will record cosmic-radiation-related measurements while I move across the ice cap, creating a mobile transect of radiation data across changing elevation, atmospheric pressure, latitude, and environmental conditions.
The experiment builds on the earlier GRASP work from Arctic Edge in Svalbard and continues it through CRAIG – Cosmic Radiation in Greenland. Cosmic rays from space interact with Earth’s atmosphere and produce secondary particles that can be measured at ground level. By collecting data along a remote Greenland crossing, the project can help researchers better understand polar radiation environments, atmospheric ionization, space-weather effects, and radiation exposure in high-latitude and space-analog environments.
DYE2 Digital Preservation
Objective
To digitally preserve DYE-2, an abandoned Cold War DEW Line station on the Greenland Ice Sheet, by creating a high-fidelity digital record of its current condition before further structural collapse, burial, or environmental change
Description
DYE-2 is a rare artifact of Cold War engineering, built on the ice sheet and now affected by tilt, subsidence, snow accumulation, and environmental change. During the expedition, I plan to document the site using drone-based visual capture and 3D documentation methods.
The goal is to create a detailed digital twin of the station and its surroundings: a permanent record that can support heritage preservation, glaciological research, structural assessment, public education, and future scientific use. The workflow will combine drone imagery, Gaussian Splatting, Neural Radiance Fields, and satellite communication assisted cloud-based processing to generate a navigable digital reconstruction of the site.
Digital Twinning of Remote Operational Environment
Objective
To demonstrate a transferable workflow for creating a decision-ready digital twin of a remote, fragile, and operationally difficult environment, using DYE-2 on the Greenland Ice Sheet as a real-world case study
Description
Beyond heritage documentation, the DYE-2 work is also a test of how extreme environments can be captured, modeled, validated, and used for planning and decision-making. The project explores how in-situ visual data collection, SLAM, 3D Gaussian Splatting, and iterative “gap detection and recapture” can turn a remote physical site into a metric, navigable digital twin.
This workflow has potential value beyond Greenland. It can support access planning, structural hazard assessment, collaborative mission rehearsal, remote stakeholder review, multi-season change tracking, and future modelling and simulation frameworks for extreme operational environments. The abstract submitted to the 2026 NATO Modelling and Simulation Group frames DYE-2 as a case study for digital twinning in remote, fragile, high-latitude mission spaces.