Troll Satellite Station
Troll Satellite Station (), commonly abbreviated TrollSat, is a satellite ground station located at Troll in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. The earth station is owned by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between the Kongsberg Group and the Norwegian Space Center. The radomes are located on top of Jutulsessen, a nunatak area next to the research station at Troll. The research station is operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute, which also maintains the earth station. TrollSat started operations on 1 March 2007 and was officially opened on 20 January 2008. The earth station serves low Earth orbit satellites and consists of a antenna capable of S band and X band reception. Information is relayed using a and a C band uplink. Operations control is carried out by KSAT in Tromsø, Norway. Satellites using TrollSat include Radarsat, GeoEye, WorldView, Galileo and CHEOPS. The system is coordinated with Svalbard Satellite Station (SvalSat) in Longyearbyen, Norway, which combined offer downloading twice per orbit. History Troll was established as a research station by the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1990. The station took its name from the surrounding jagged mountains, which resemble trolls of Norse mythology. Already at this time, there were proposals by