![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2016\/04\/proba-1_images_svalbard_ground_station\/15950468-1-eng-GB\/Proba-1_images_Svalbard_ground_station_small.jpg\")
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\nLong shadows cast across the snow give a frosty view of the covered domes of Europe\u2019s most northerly ground station, as seen by the smallest camera on ESA\u2019s veteran Proba-1 minisatellite.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe Svalbard Satellite Station<\/a> sits on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. Operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services<\/a>, it is the world\u2019s largest commercial satellite ground station.\n<\/p>\n \nLocated halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard can track all 14 daily passes of polar-orbiting satellites, and has performed downlink duties for numerous ESA Earth-observing missions up to the present day.\n<\/p>\n \nIt is an also an important site for Europe\u2019s Galileo navigation satellites, hosting a sensor station to monitor signal quality and an uplink station to transmit navigation message updates to the satellite fleet.\n<\/p>\n \nIn addition, Svalbard hosts one of Europe\u2019s three terminals<\/a> for relaying distress beacons detected by Galileo and other satellites to regional search and rescue services.\n<\/p>\n \nNote the slice of airstrip, cleared of snow, at the top of the image. Also free of snow is the road to the station, which stands 400 m above the airstrip. The island power plant can also be seen along the road. The Global Seed Vault<\/a>, storing diverse crop seeds in the event of global disaster, is also located along the road, although not visible here.\n<\/p>\n \nThe cubic-metre Proba-1<\/a> is the first in ESA\u2019s series of satellites aimed at flight-testing new space technologies. It was launched in October 2001 but is still going strong after 14 years, having since been reassigned to ESA\u2019s Earth observation duties.\n<\/p>\n \nProba-1\u2019s main hyperspectral CHRIS imager is supplemented by this experimental HRC high-resolution camera, acquiring black and white 5 m-resolution images.\n<\/p>\n \nOther innovations included what were then novel gallium-arsenide solar cells, the use of startrackers for gyroless attitude control, one of the first lithium-ion batteries \u2013 now the longest such item operating in orbit \u2013 and one of ESA\u2019s first ERC32 microprocessors<\/a> to run Proba-1\u2019s agile computer.\n<\/p>\n \n This HRC image was acquired on 16 April 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \nLong shadows cast across the snow give a frosty view of the covered domes of Europe’s most northerly ground station, as seen by the smallest camera on ESA’s veteran Proba-1 minisatellite.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Svalbard Satellite Station<\/a> sits on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. Operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services<\/a>, it is the world’s largest commercial satellite ground station.\n<\/p>\n \nLocated halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Svalbard can track all 14 daily passes of polar-orbiting satellites, and has performed downlink duties for numerous ESA Earth-observing missions up to the present day.\n<\/p>\n \nIt is an also an important site for Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites, hosting a sensor station to monitor signal quality and an uplink station to transmit navigation message updates to the satellite fleet.\n<\/p>\n \nIn addition, Svalbard hosts one of Europe’s three terminals<\/a> for relaying distress beacons detected by Galileo and other satellites to regional search and rescue services.\n<\/p>\n \nNote the slice of airstrip, cleared of snow, at the top of the image. Also free of snow is the road to the station, which stands 400 m above the airstrip. The island power plant can also be seen along the road. The Global Seed Vault<\/a>, storing diverse crop seeds in the event of global disaster, is also located along the road, although not visible here.\n<\/p>\n \nThe cubic-metre Proba-1<\/a> is the first in ESA’s series of satellites aimed at flight-testing new space technologies. It was launched in October 2001 but is still going strong after 14 years, having since been reassigned to ESA’s Earth observation duties.\n<\/p>\n \nProba-1’s main hyperspectral CHRIS imager is supplemented by this experimental HRC high-resolution camera, acquiring black and white 5 m-resolution images.\n<\/p>\n \nOther innovations included what were then novel gallium-arsenide solar cells, the use of startrackers for gyroless attitude control, one of the first lithium-ion batteries – now the longest such item operating in orbit – and one of ESA’s first ERC32 microprocessors<\/a> to run Proba-1’s agile computer.\n<\/p>\n \n This HRC image was acquired on 16 April 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240671,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240669\/revisions\/240671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n