AbstractNanosatellite constellations at low Earth orbits represent a cost-efficient way for the accomplishment of Earth and space observation tasks. With the growing complexity of the exploration tasks, the amount of science data is expected to increase. For data download purposes efficient communication strategies must be adopted. The available power of a single nanosatellite spacecraft is limited by the small area of solar arrays. The communications equipment consumes a substantial amount of power. A constellation of nanosatellites allows to share resources efficiently, assigning major tasks to different spacecrafts. Within the constellation, a dedicated spacecraft which acts as data relay, monitoring and controlling inter-satellite communications is advantageous. This allows all other satellites to reuse the energy saved by implementing low-energy consuming communications links between the satellites. With this approach, taking advantage of scheduled communication contacts, the overall system performance can be maximized.For the envisaged data relay scenario, the adoption of advanced communication protocol concepts is required. This paper presents innovative solutions for the fulfilment of the described communications tasks. After an investigation of the system requirements, strategies for the interconnection of the spacecrafts for the creation of a small constellation network are provided. Suitable transport protocol implementations are investigated and efficient store-and-forward concepts are proposed. A communication architecture for the usage of a data relay satellite within the constellation is presented, describing the role of the different nodes in the network.


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    Titel :

    Next-generation communication protocol concepts for future nanosatellite constellations


    Beteiligte:

    Erschienen in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 67 , 9-10 ; 1126-1131


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2010-06-13


    Format / Umfang :

    6 pages




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch





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