Design, Development and Analysis of Distributed and Hybrid Medium Access Control Protocols for Inter-satellite Communications for Small Satellites

Small satellite systems enable a whole new class of missions for navigation, communications, remote sensing, and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. As individual spacecrafts are limited by the size, mass and power constraints, mass-produced small satellites in large constellations or clusters could be useful in many science missions such as gravity mapping, tracking of forest fires, finding water resources, etc. The proliferation of small satellites will enable a better understanding of the near-Earth environment and provide an efficient and economical means to access space through the use of multi-satellites. Constellation of satellites provide improved spatial and temporal resolution of the target. Small satellite constellations contribute innovative applications by replacing a single asset with several very capable spacecrafts which opens the door to new applications.;Future space missions are envisioned to become more complex and operate farther from Earth which will need to support autonomous operations with minimal human intervention. With increasing levels of autonomy, there will be a need for remote communication networks to enable communication between spacecrafts. These space based networks will need to configure and maintain dynamic routes, manage intermediate nodes, and reconfigure themselves to achieve mission objectives. Hence, inter-satellite communication is a key aspect when satellites fly in formation. Our work discusses the communication design issues of Pico-Nano Satellites (PNSats) within a sensor network construct. This research focuses on designing and simulating suitable Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing layer protocols for distributed small satellite network. Given that we use the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model as a framework, this work represents a focus on layer 2-data link layer, in particular the MAC layer. Design, development and analysis of both distributed and hybrid MAC protocols are performed. We also present a comprehensive list of design parameters useful for achieving inter-satellite communications for multiple small satellite missions.