THE LITA (IN SWEDISH “TRUST) GROUND STATION FACILITY PROVIDES REAL TIME EARTH SERVICES TO MULTIPLE INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS WITH GREAT OPERATIONAL RELIABILITY, COMMERCIAL VIABILITY AND SCALABILITY.
Due to the unique location (65.34 N, 21.39 E) the ground station has a geographical footprint ranging from the Mediterranean Sea up to the North Pole and can track satellites up to 9 times per day. This allows the satellite to perform mission operations activities such as remote sensing and TT&C within this area in Real Time.
An ESA BIC project was major part of this establishment and support was used to perform radio frequency environment surveys, the development of a network management centre and the integration of a data centre facility.
Arctic Space has recently partnered with Viasat Inc. (USA) and a 7.3 m triband (S/X/Ka) antenna system was established to provide Real Time Earth services to international customers. However, the ground station offers more than only forwarding data from an antenna to a satellite operators centre. Currently a “Green Space Data Repository” is being developed and tested with the mission to store and archive exabytes of space related data without generating any greenhouse gases. The mission is to be fully aligned with the European Green Deal. This fully private and secure archiving solution has the potential to support potential customers such as ESA to eliminate the carbon footprint on satellite data processing.
FORWARDING LOOKING STATEMENTS
Arctic Space is planning to operate a second 7.3 m antenna system and provide the system to the European Space Agency for TT&C and data acquisition services. Additionally, the Green Space Data Repository will be an integral part of this ground segment. Qualification tests are currently being performed to archive Copernicus satellite data which would mitigate about 1,4 tons of CO2 per petabyte per storage month with the Green Space Data Repository.