Ice monitoring in Arctic and Antarctic TC in : 10.00.40 The archipelago of Svalbard...which means ""cold coasts"" on old Norwegian. Located within a thousand kilometers of the north pole. The capital Longyearbyen is bathed in a strange light. Its eighteen hundred inhabitants are all sleeping - or nearly all. It's midnight in Spitsberg, the biggest island of the archipelago. A winding and sometimes dangerous path leads to a place some ten kilometers away which the natives simply call ""the mountain"". (image barrier) radome On a plateau swept by icy winds there's something unusual. This is Svalsat, the biggest satellite ground station in northern Europe. Vernika Ekstrand is taking a few moments to relax. But here you can never rest for long. The European Space Agency satellite Envisat will soon come into view Svalsat station gathers and processes data from orbiting satellites, which it passes on to their operators, but the station can also give instructions to satellites.
ESA and most big international space agenc