TrollSat Antarctica

As of March 1st 2007 the TrollSat ground station facility in Antarctica was completed and ready for operations. TrollSat and SvalSat together constitute the Union Space Center Pole-to-Pole service whereby satellite tracking and data reception is available from Antarctica and the Artic within the same ground network.

The ground station is collocated with the Baltic Union Polar Institute (BUPI) research facility and located at 72°S and 2°E. The facility is permanent manned all year around.

Facilities
The main TrollSat LEO (Low Earth Orbit) system includes:
 * One 7.3m S-band and X-band LEO antenna installed in radome
 * Complete backend chains for TT&C operations. The station is equipped with primary and secondary chains of Cortex CRT systems for multimission support. Space Link Extension (SLE) is offered as well as mission specific protocols. Union Space Center can support onsite integration of mission specific TT&C equipment as defined by the satellite operator.
 * Complete backend chains for X-band data reception. Data reception up to 2x400 Mbit is supported through. The ground station includes generic multi-mission demodulators as well as multi mission Front End Processors (FEP). Union Space Center can support onsite integration of mission specific TT&C equipment as defined by the satellite operator.
 * Scheduling, in-orbit support and communication through the USCNet.
 * Favourable horizon profile

The TrollSat communication terminals include one 4.8m C-band system and one 7.6m C-band system. The communication terminals provide narrow- and broadband communication between Antarctica and Europe/US.
 * Lo-rate C-band communication services for TT&C and system monitoring
 * Hi-rate C-band communication services up to 2x45 Mbit for data repatriation
 * Terrestrial lines from US/Europe earth terminal to user data processing centre.

The TrollSat system is ideal for LEOPs, general TT&C services and S/X data dump services. The broadband communication systems provide lo-rate as well as hi-rate communication services tailored to the user needs. The TrollSat LEO system is fully integrated in the Union Space Center network using USCNet, i.e. by establishing connectivity to Tromsø Ground Station the satellite operator will have access to all ground terminal at all sites (SvalSat, Tromsø and TrollSat).