Relay-based routing protocol for space networks with predictable mobility

Future space scientific missions are envisioned to incorporate a large number of satellites and spacecrafts deployed in different orbits to network together into Space Networks. These networks have some unique characteristics such as limited resource of nodes, large latency and intermittent connectivity, which pose challenges to routing. In this paper, we propose a Relay-based Routing Protocol for Space Networks (RRPSN), which exploits the predictability of nodes motion to help deliver packets. Nodes use the link state and trajectory information received from other nodes to construct the routing tables where the next hop node is selected from the current as well as the future neighbors. Three key components of the protocol, including dissemination link information, modified Dijkstra's algorithm and packet processing are described in this paper. The computation complexity and overhead of the protocol is analyzed.