[russss]

The reason for that is there's a an important satellite ground station on Svalbard - it's in an ideal place to communicate with polar-orbiting satellites:

http://www.ksat.no/node/77

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Undersea_Cable_System

[alexqgb]

Photographer Christian Hougue produced a really beautiful series on this ground stations called Arctic Technology. He mentioned that the air is some of cleanest in the world, which is a real boon to the equipment they're running.

http://www.soulfood.no/arctic_technology.html#img/arctic_tec...

[omegant]

Certainly great pics!, There is only missing some AT-ATs and storm troopers in some of them...