As the Arctic heats up, the U.S. Coast Guard\u2019s icebreaker fleet is preparing for boom times<\/a>]<\/p>\nPresident Donald Trump\u2019s proposed Golden Dome space-based defense system will likely include satellites focused on the area, and the U.S. is already handing out lucrative defense contracts for work in the north. Northrop Grumman Corp. in 2024 announced the activation of Arctic payloads for the U.S. Space Force and has a deal worth more than $4.1 billion to make two polar-orbiting satellites by 2031. Boeing Co. in July won a $2.8 billion Space Force contract for two satellites and an option for two more, part of a $12 billion program that Space Systems Command said will include \u201cenhanced Arctic capability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s good about a polar orbit is you pass over every spot of the globe,\u201d said David Marsh, founder of Washington-based consulting firm Space For Earth and an Arctic expert formerly at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. \u201cThe entire Earth is rotating underneath you as you go around.\u201d<\/p>\n
If China or Russia were to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, \u201call of that is going to fly over the North Pole,\u201d said Pierre Leblanc, a retired colonel who served as leader of Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to have a lot of sensors that are going to be monitoring that area and sensors that have the ability to upload information.\u201d<\/p>\n
An ideal location to look up at orbit is Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that\u2019s the closest sizeable habitation to the North Pole and connected via undersea cable to mainland Norway, a NATO member. The islands are home to Svalsat, the world\u2019s largest polar satellite ground station.<\/p>\n
However, a 1920 treaty recognizing Oslo\u2019s sovereignty forbids Svalbard\u2019s use for \u201cwarlike purposes.\u201d That means \u201cdata can\u2019t be downloaded for military use,\u201d said Ole Kokvik, the Svalsat director.<\/p>\n
The vulnerability of subsea cables creates another complication. A Space Norway link between Svalbard and the mainland suffered a power outage in 2022 and suspected saboteurs have targeted underwater data cables in the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n
Those drawbacks are fueling demand for alternatives. There are \u201crisks being on a remote island, especially if you have submarines and ships doing whatever they do,\u201d said Fredrik Sch\u00e4der, chief business development officer of Arctic Space Technologies AB, which operates a facility in the Swedish town of Pite\u00e5, where the company installed its first antenna in 2022. The startup now has 35 there, with plans to grow to 40 next year, serving government customers and companies like Viasat Inc. and Eutelsat Communications.<\/p>\n
Eutelsat, which operates a network competing against Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink, last year opened a ground station in Yellowknife, the capital of Canada\u2019s Northwest Territories, with Swedish Space Corp. and local partner Northwestel.<\/p>\n
Another hub of Canadian activity is Inuvik, population about 3,300. The Northwest Territories town is home to ground stations owned by Canada and another owned by Norway\u2019s Kongsberg Satellite Services. Users include the French, German and Swedish governments. This year, the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility added five more dishes, which Mayor Peter Clarkson estimated took the total to 13. \u201cCanada is setting up another dish because their dish is full,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then the Swedes have put up another dish. Same thing: They\u2019re getting a broader customer base.\u201d<\/p>\n
C-Core, operator of another Inuvik ground station, in October announced expansion plans as Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s government seeks to reduce its reliance on the U.S. C-Core, headquartered in St. John\u2019s, Newfoundland and Labrador, will \u201cserve Canadian missions for Canadians,\u201d said Desmond Power, vice president for remote sensing.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a small Inuvik-based internet service provider called New North Networks, run by local entrepreneur Tom Zubko, has acquired land in town for another ground station site. \u201cChina satellites are flying over the top of us every hour or so,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd Russian satellites are doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farther east, more orbital activity has increased the importance of Pituffik, a U.S. Space Force base in Greenland used for satellite monitoring. Vice President JD Vance visited in March and said Denmark had \u201cunder-invested in the security architecture\u201d of the island, which Trump has said the U.S. needs to acquire.<\/p>\n
Like Svalbard, though, Greenland depends on subsea cables vulnerable to attack \u2014 and it\u2019s not in the U.S. \u201cYou want to have a robust, modernized footprint on American (Arctic) territory,\u201d said Elizabeth Buchanan, senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, who pointed to infrastructure growth during the administration of former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
One U.S. location is the Clear Space Force Station, about 80 miles southwest of Fairbanks. In June, the Space Force worked with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Northern Command to test a system from Clear to track intercontinental ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n
Expecting more customers, RBC Signals wants to expand in Deadhorse, which founder Ritchins said is also home to an Amazon.com Inc. facility that\u2019s part of the AWS Ground Station network. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the location of its Alaska facility.<\/p>\n
RBC Signals customers include the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space Development Agency, according to Chief Executive Officer Ron Faith. In Deadhorse, the company started with a single antenna, now on the roof of the area\u2019s only hotel, and the newest is a 3.9-meter antenna that began service last year.<\/p>\n
Far north, \u201cyou can see a satellite 14-plus times a day,\u201d he said, \u201cwhereas if you\u2019re at a mid-latitude, you may only see that satellite four times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Construction poses its challenges. To keep out snow and winds, the sail-shaped antennas are enclosed in domes mounted on heated sheds. The structures resemble hot air balloons, tethered to the ground with steel pilings drilled 45 feet deep in case the permafrost thaws.<\/p>\n
During construction in 2018, staff arrived one morning to see a grizzly bear stroll out of an unfinished structure. The company has since added a door (that\u2019s kept locked), as well as a chain-link fence and barbed wire to deter human intruders.<\/p>\n
One factor that could make Arctic stations less important is the emergence of inter-satellite links to transmit data in space before sending to a terrestrial transmitter. \u201cAll of a sudden, maybe it\u2019s not so important to have geographically remote ground stations\u201d so long as you have enough satellites to relay data to each other, C-Core\u2019s Power said.<\/p>\n
Even with such advances, satellite operators will likely keep observation points in the High North, said Marsh, the consultant who started Space for Earth. \u201cEven with this high tech, extremely capable inter-satellite laser communications, you\u2019re still limited by bandwidth,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s still best if you have a big old dish and you have a nice fiber-optic cable and you have no concerns about the amount of data you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
____<\/p>\n
With assistance from Alan Crawford, Ott Ummelas and Jade Khatib.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts, lifts off from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6234,165930,308,79,193,6235],"class_list":{"0":"post-325457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-bestof","9":"tag-essential","10":"tag-horizontal","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-topix"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3ZM3KDWERJCKRLGIGSVRL6RTK4.jpg\")
A Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on Oct. 31, 2025. (Hector Retamal\/AFP\/Getty Images\/TNS) <\/p>\n