Longyearbyen was selected because of its high latitude, which allows all satellites with an orbit above 500 kilometers (300 mi) to use only a single ground station-yet download from every orbit. Instead, SvalSat was established to serve as an earth station for NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). Already at this time, there were proposals by the Norwegian Space Centre to establish an earth station at Troll, but the lack of all-year activity stranded the plans.
The station took its name from the surrounding jagged mountains, which resemble trolls of Norse mythology. Troll was established as a research station by the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1990. The system is coordinated with Svalbard Satellite Station (SvalSat) in Longyearbyen, Norway, which combined offer downloading twice per orbit. Satellites using TrollSat include Radarsat, GeoEye, WorldView, Galileo and CHEOPS. Operations control is carried out by KSAT in Tromsø, Norway. Information is relayed using a 4.8-meter (16 ft) and a 7.6-meter (25 ft) C band uplink. The earth station serves low Earth orbit satellites and consists of a 7.3-meter (24 ft) antenna capable of S band and X band reception. TrollSat started operations on 1 March 2007 and was officially opened on 20 January 2008. The research station is operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute, which also maintains the earth station. The radomes are located on top of Jutulsessen, a nunatak area next to the research station at Troll. The earth station is owned by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between the Kongsberg Group and the Norwegian Space Center. Troll Satellite Station ( Norwegian: Troll satellittstasjon), commonly abbreviated TrollSat, is a satellite ground station located at Troll in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.
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