Internetworking approaches towards along-track segmented satellite architectures

Abstract

The Argentinian Space Agency (CONAE) has been pursuing the development of segmented satellite architectures as a novel strategy to reduce the cost and improve responsiveness of space access. Among the key enablers for these architectures, wireless communication is likely to be the most critical as it requires to operate on a highly dynamic, sparse and extreme environments. In this work, we analyze and derive the main specifications that a communication system for segmented architectures (CSSA) must support. In particular, we provide an abstract model to predict the access time to segmented systems to later propose a layered arrangement of the main specifications for the CSSA. Finally, we analyze by simulation a particular CSSA configuration in a simple yet representative scenario with an along-track flight formation.