Small satellites and CubeSats: survey of structures, architectures, and protocols

The space environment is still challenging but is becoming more and more attractive for an increasing number of entities. In the second half of the 20th century, a huge amount of funds was required to build satellites and gain access to space. Nowadays, it is no longer so. The advancement of technologies allows producing very small hardware components able to survive the strict conditions of the outer space. Consequently, small satellites can be designed for a wide set of missions keeping low design times, production costs, and deployment costs. One widely used type of small satellite is the CubeSat, whose different aspects are surveyed in the following: mission goals, hardware subsystems and components, possible network topologies, channel models, and suitable communication protocols. We also show some future challenges related to the employment of CubeSat networks

ACTS 118x: High Speed TCP Interoperability Testing

With the recent explosion of the Internet and the enormous business opportunities available to communication system providers, great interest has developed in improving the efficiency of data transfer over satellite links using the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) of the Internet Protocol (IP) suite. The NASA's ACTS experiments program initiated a series of TCP experiments to demonstrate scalability of TCP/IP and determine to what extent the protocol can be optimized over a 622 Mbps satellite link. Through partnerships with the government technology oriented labs, computer, telecommunication, and satellite industries NASA Glenn was able to: (1) promote the development of interoperable, high-performance TCP/IP implementations across multiple computing / operating platforms; (2) work with the satellite industry to answer outstanding questions regarding the use of standard protocols (TCP/IP and ATM) for the delivery of advanced data services, and for use in spacecraft architectures; and (3) conduct a series of TCP/IP interoperability tests over OC12 ATM over a satellite network in a multi-vendor environment using ACTS. The experiments' various network configurations and the results are presented

Satellite Networks: Architectures, Applications, and Technologies

Since global satellite networks are moving to the forefront in enhancing the national and global information infrastructures due to communication satellites' unique networking characteristics, a workshop was organized to assess the progress made to date and chart the future. This workshop provided the forum to assess the current state-of-the-art, identify key issues, and highlight the emerging trends in the next-generation architectures, data protocol development, communication interoperability, and applications. Presentations on overview, state-of-the-art in research, development, deployment and applications and future trends on satellite networks are assembled

SATELLITE BASED DATA COMMUNICATION: A SURVEY

ABSTRACT Satellite communication is well known in providing best services where broadcasting is essential, where terrain is hostile and very sparsely populated. It also has niche where rapid deployment is very critical and important. In Global Network Infrastructure satellite is considered as an inseparable component of the communication infrastructure. A variety of research work has been explored and published for satellite based data communication & networking. It is utmost important to conduct a survey on different aspects and research issues of satellite based communication with a focus on the latest development. In this paper, we summarize, compare & comments on the approaches proposed for the satellite based data communication with keeping in view the parameters like Quality of service, Interplanetary Internet, Mobility management, explicit load balancing and packet reordering issue

End-to-End Resilience Mechanisms for Network Transport Protocols

The universal reliance on and hence the need for resilience in network communications has been well established. Current transport protocols are designed to provide fixed mechanisms for error remediation (if any), using techniques such as ARQ, and offer little or no adaptability to underlying network conditions, or to different sets of application requirements. The ubiquitous TCP transport protocol makes too many assumptions about underlying layers to provide resilient end-to-end service in all network scenarios, especially those which include significant heterogeneity. Additionally the properties of reliability, performability, availability, dependability, and survivability are not explicitly addressed in the design, so there is no support for resilience. This dissertation presents considerations which must be taken in designing new resilience mechanisms for future transport protocols to meet service requirements in the face of various attacks and challenges. The primary mechanisms addressed include diverse end-to-end paths, and multi-mode operation for changing network conditions

Communication platform for inter-satellite links in distributed satellite systems

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A distributed intelligent network based on CORBA and SCTP

The telecommunications services marketplace is undergoing radical change due to the rapid convergence and evolution of telecommunications and computing technologies. Traditionally telecommunications service providers’ ability to deliver network services has been through Intelligent Network (IN) platforms. The IN may be characterised as envisioning centralised processing of distributed service requests from a limited number of quasi-proprietary nodes with inflexible connections to the network management system and third party networks. The nodes are inter-linked by the operator’s highly reliable but expensive SS.7 network. To leverage this technology as the core of new multi-media services several key technical challenges must be overcome. These include: integration of the IN with new technologies for service delivery, enhanced integration with network management services, enabling third party service providers and reducing operating costs by using more general-purpose computing and networking equipment. In this thesis we present a general architecture that defines the framework and techniques required to realise an open, flexible, middleware (CORBA)-based distributed intelligent network (DIN). This extensible architecture naturally encapsulates the full range of traditional service network technologies, for example IN (fixed network), GSM-MAP and CAMEL. Fundamental to this architecture are mechanisms for inter-working with the existing IN infrastructure, to enable gradual migration within a domain and inter-working between IN and DIN domains. The DIN architecture compliments current research on third party service provision, service management and integration Internet-based servers. Given the dependence of such a distributed service platform on the transport network that links computational nodes, this thesis also includes a detailed study of the emergent IP-based telecommunications transport protocol of choice, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP). In order to comply with the rigorous performance constraints of this domain, prototyping, simulation and analytic modelling of the DIN based on SCTP have been carried out. This includes the first detailed analysis of the operation of SCTP congestion controls under a variety of network conditions leading to a number of suggested improvements in the operation of the protocol. Finally we describe a new analytic framework for dimensioning networks with competing multi-homed SCTP flows in a DIN. This framework can be used for any multi-homed SCTP network e.g. one transporting SIP or HTTP

Range Information Systems Management (RISM) Phase 1 Report

RISM investigated alternative approaches, technologies, and communication network architectures to facilitate building the Spaceports and Ranges of the future. RISM started by document most existing US ranges and their capabilities. In parallel, RISM obtained inputs from the following: 1) NASA and NASA-contractor engineers and managers, and; 2) Aerospace leaders from Government, Academia, and Industry, participating through the Space Based Range Distributed System Working Group (SBRDSWG), many of whom are also; 3) Members of the Advanced Range Technology Working Group (ARTWG) subgroups, and; 4) Members of the Advanced Spaceport Technology Working Group (ASTWG). These diverse inputs helped to envision advanced technologies for implementing future Ranges and Range systems that builds on today s cabled and wireless legacy infrastructures while seamlessly integrating both today s emerging and tomorrow s building-block communication techniques. The fundamental key is to envision a transition to a Space Based Range Distributed Subsystem. The enabling concept is to identify the specific needs of Range users that can be solved through applying emerging communication tec