The Longyear Valley (Norwegian: Longyeardalen) is a valley and ravine in Svalbard. It slightly winds 40 kilometres (25 mi) WNW ending in Adventfjorden, facing west, the broadest inlet of Spitsbergen, the main landmass. It has a few wind gaps to the south and north-east over small glaciers, under which small streams form. It is between mountains Platåberget and Gruvefjellet. The town of Longyearbyen is at its foot, which is named for the American industrialist John Munro Longyear. The Longyear River is, like all the island's rivers, silted from surrounding glaciers.
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Platåberget in the context of Svalbard Satellite Station
Svalbard Satellite Station (Norwegian: Svalbard satellittstasjon) or SvalSat is a satellite ground station located on Platåberget near Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway. Opened in 1997, it is operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC). SvalSat and KSAT's Troll Satellite Station (TrollSat) in Antarctica are the only ground stations that can see a low altitude polar orbiting satellite (e.g., in Sun-synchronous orbit) on every revolution as the Earth rotates. As of 2021, the facility consists of 100 multi-mission and customer-dedicated antennas which operate in the C, L, S, X and K bands. The station provides ground services to more satellites than any other facility in the world.
Customers with their own installations include the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The station also reads and distributes data from the Japanese Hinode solar research satellite. The facility has seen a large increase in smaller customers after 2004, when the Svalbard Undersea Cable System started providing a fiber Internet connection. Concessions for downloading are only issued to civilian satellites, yet some data has been indirectly used by armed forces. There is a disagreement as to whether this constitutes a breach of the Svalbard Treaty.