Routing Strategies for LEO and VLEO Mega-Constellations: Performance Evaluation and Enhancements

In today's world it is possible to deploy thousands of satellites at lower orbits, due to the rapid technological advancements in the aerospace engineering field and the drop in the manufacturing costs of satellites. Non Geo-stationary Satellite Orbit (NGSO) mega-constellations, consisting of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites at altitudes between 300 km and 2000 km, present new challenges when addressing routing. Mainly, they arise from the configuration of the constellation under test and the selection of paths, which require innovative routing solutions to ensure efficient data transmission. In the following research work, the performance of different deterministic routing algorithms has been studied for both LEO and VLEO Walker Delta constellations as well as the impact of distinct altitude, inclination and topology. Additionally, a novel heuristic has been introduced, showing its potential to significantly reduce overall latency by optimizing routing patterns in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.