I suspect, although I have no references, that satellite to ground connectivity is probably more “circuit-based” than per-packet or frame.
Iridium has done inter satellite communication for decades. I wonder if it wouldn’t be something very similar. Although it would be totally on-brand for them to do it some “revolutionary” new way whether it actually makes any sense or not. On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 3:06 PM Matthew Petach <mpet...@netflight.com> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 2:45 PM Michael Thomas <m...@mtcc.com> wrote: > >> I read in the Economist that the gen of starlink satellites will have >> the ability to route messages between each satellite. Would conventional >> routing protocols be up to such a challenge? Or would it have to be >> custom made for that problem? And since a lot of companies and countries >> are getting on that action, it seems like fertile ground for (bad) wheel >> reinvention? >> >> Mike >> >> > > Unlike most terrestrial links, the distances between satellites are not > fixed, > and thus the latency between nodes is variable, making the concept of > "Shortest Path First" calculation a much more dynamic and challenging > one to keep current, as the latency along a path may be constantly > changing > as the satellite nodes move relative to each other, without any link state > actually > changing to trigger a new SPF calculation. > > I suspect a form of OLSR might be more advantageous in a dynamic partial > mesh between satellites, but I haven't given it as much deep thought as > would > be necessary to form an informed opinion. > > So, yes--it's likely the routing protocol used will not be entirely > "off-the-shelf" > but will instead incorporate continuous latency information in the LSDB, > and path selection will be time-bound based on the rate of increase in > latency > along currently-selected edges in the graph. > > An interesting problem to dive into, certainly. :) > > Thanks! > > Matt > >
