Svalbard Satellite Station, Svalbard Archipelago, Norway

© Tim E White/Getty Images

Svalbard Satellite Station, Svalbard Archipelago, Norway

Sorry golf fanatics, this isn’t the clubhouse at the world’s most treacherous course. The Svalbard Satellite Station’s extreme northern position on the globe—inside the Arctic Circle, about 1,200 kilometres south of the North Pole—means it can track a low-altitude polar-orbiting satellite for an entire orbit around Earth. That’s something few other stations can do. It handles satellite communications for private and governmental clients, and is closely associated with various space agencies around the world.