LEO satellite constellation performance analysis

To date, radio frequency crosslinks have been the preferred communication medium for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks. However, laser crosslinks in satellite constellations introduce many new and interesting research problems not addressed in these conventional methods. One such problem is communication disruption caused by external noise sources (e.g., background radiation from the Sun and the Moon). The authors analyze the crosslink connectivity of a particular LEO constellation currently under consideration in the literature (the Iridium project) as a function of solar background radiation. The technique introduced may be generalized to study a variety of different constellations