Implementing a mobility architecture for a Regenerative Satellite Mesh Architecture (RSM-A) system a SPACEWAY™ perspective

Communications-on-the-move (COTM) is becoming an indispensable feature for next generation satellites. Many commercial and government based satellite communications programs are including support for terminal mobility as a key feature. Adding COTM capabilities to regenerative (non-transponded) satellite systems, such as layer-2 and layer-3 switching satellites impacts the satellite system, network and protocol architecture and design. The unique challenges and complications arising from supporting COTM capabilities can impact all segments of a satellite communications program, including ground stations, satellites, and terminals. In this paper, we examine the key aspects associated with implementing mobile satellite services (MSS) for next generation regenerative satellites which were originally designed to support fixed satellite services (FSS). We identify common challenges that arise when architecting a mobile regenerative satellite communications system and show methods to successfully address them. In particular, we focus on the SPACEWAY satellite system and show how COTM can be supported through enhancement to the baseline architecture. SPACEWAY was originally designed to support commercial fixed satellite service. SPACEWAY implements the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Regenerative Satellite Mesh-A (RSM-A) air interface standard and complies with the ETSI Broadband Satellite Multimedia (BSM) Satellite Independent Service Access Point (SI-SAP). This will serve as a blueprint for standards based RSM-A systems and the concepts can be extended to other non-standards based regenerative satellite systems as well.