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| Youths won competition and a journey to Svalbard |
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On the 9th September 2005 Lena from Sulitjelma and Attiya from Oslo went on a trip to Svalstat, the receiving station on Svalbard. NAROM was host for the trip. The youths won the drawing from among the Norwegian participants in EUMETSAT’s competition concerning the most enthusiastic and talented satellite meteorologists.
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In November 2004 EUMETSAT, the European satellite organisation, introduced a competition for pupils aged 15 to 16 years. The occasion was the launching of the new European geostationary weather satellite MSG-2/ Meteosat 9. None of the Norwegian participants won the main award, - a trip to EUMETSAT’s headquarters in the German town Darmstadt.
But Lena Hanssen at Sulitjelma Adolescence Centre and Attiya Akram at Manglerud Upper Secondary School won a trip to Svalbard. Together with the youths was adviser Birgit Strømsholm, NAROM, who was also responsible for arranging the trip. |
| | | Exciting guided tour at SvalSat |
Svalsat is situated at Platåberget close to the town Longyearbyen. At the receiving station the youths were received by the managing engineer Veronika Ekstrand, who gave a description of SvalSat’s unique situation as regards the ability to receive data from polar orbital satellites.
Satellites orbiting in polar orbits pass close to the North and South poles 14 times during the period of 24 hours. For somebody owning such a satellite, and wanting to control the satellite and reading out data as often as possible, it is ideal to use the ground station SvalSat at Svalbard. From here all 14 passings of this type of satellites "may be seen".
Furthermore, Svalbard is one of the few places, if not to say the only place in polar areas, having an infrastructure sufficiently developed for making it possible to establish a receiving station and run it cost-effectively. |
| | | Control station and antenna systems for receiving data from METOP |
Lena and Attiya also got a thorough introduction into the control station and the antenna systems that is adapted and being tested for the new meteorological satellite METOP to be put into orbit in 2006.
It was in 2000 that EUMETSAT decided to establish the receiving station at Platåberget on Svalbard for its new program for meteorological satellites in polar orbits.
It was explained to the youths that the data being received by the station will be transported rapidly from Svalbard to the central processing unit at EUMETSAT’s headquarters in Darmstadt in Germany, and from there to the meteorological institutes in the member countries and elsewhere in the world.
According to schedule, the launching of the first METOP satellite is to take place during spring 2006. To begin with, there will be 3 satellites of this type, covering the needs until about the year 2020 and perhaps some years in addition. They represent a completely new generation of satellites, to which Norwegian weather forecasting attaches great expectations, because they cover the northern areas very well. The satellites will contain new instruments which, among other things, will make it possible to calculate the winds at the surface of the ocean, and they will also give more accurate information about temperature and humidity in different layers of the atmosphere. |
| | | A visit to the museum and gallery, searching for fossils. |
After an impressive guided tour at Svalsat, the journey continued to the Svalbard Museum. The natural history department was thoroughly studied. It presents an exhibition of flora, fauna and geology, birds and mammals.
Through objects, images and staging, the youths obtained an insight into human activity on Svalbard throughout the latest 400 years. The exhibitions show everything from the rediscovery of Svalbard in 1596, the history of whale hunting in the 17th century, expeditions, hunting when over wintering, the war on Svalbard, coalmining and social development in connection with the Great Norwegian Spitsbergen Coalmining Company. At the mining exhibition the girls put on helmets and crept through the dark gallery surrounded by noisy digging and knocking. |
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The hunting for fossils took place in minus degrees, in gale-force winds and in light snow flurry. Despite unfavourable weather conditions, we were well satisfied with the results, - fine examples of sandstones and fossilized leaves from deciduous trees. The sandstones stem from tertiary layers (from about 2 to 65 million years ago) at Isfjorden.
There was also time for a short trip to the gallery. In addition to the exhibition of images and handicraft, the gallery also shows the image display "Artic light above Svalbard".
At the end of the stay, Lena and Attiya expressed great excitement as regards the journey of which the guided tour at Svalsat beyond doubt was the climax. In addition to many adventures and impressions, they also brought back educational material and information about current web sites that may be used in order to learn more about space related topics. Now it only remains for them to inspire and inform their classmates. |
| | | Those responsible | |
The competition is composed and arranged by the European satellite organisation EUMETSAT. In Norway the competition is supported by KSAT (Kongsberg Satellite Services), the Meteorological Institute, NAROM (National Centre for Space-related Education), the Norwegian Space Centre and the School Net. |
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