Methodology for Evaluating the Impact of Communication Channel Throughput on the Efficiency of Satellite Constellation

The use of low-orbit constellation of small or super-small satellites for solving problems of remote sensing of the Earth is a promising direction for the development of space activities. The implementation of this perspective requires the study of a wide range of fundamentally new tasks, one of which is the development of control systems for such constellations. A fundamentally new aspect in the content of this task is the possibility of using communication between satellites and the communication network of the space system as a whole. At the same time, the choice of approach to the development of the control system depends on the mode in which information exchange can take place, in real time or with time delays. The article discusses various options for the orbital construction of satellite groupings that determine the modes of information exchange. The object of research is a space system in which information exchange can occur with time delays. The aim of the research is to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of the communication network bandwidth on the efficiency of the space system. Efficiency indicators are the time of request execution and the performance of the space system — the data volumedelivered by a satellite constellation to the Earth over a certain period. The basis of the methodology is a simulation model that simulates the operation of satellites and ground infrastructure objects, the use of the developed prototype of the control system and the corresponding information exchange in the communication network.

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