Patent ID: 8189496
Filing Date: 2012-05-29
Classification: H04B,H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A distributed surface-space network fabric, comprising: a space network fabric of networked spacecraft nodes interconnected via inter-spacecraft communication links; a surface network fabric of networking surface nodes interconnected via surface communication links, and where at least some of the surface nodes are communicatively coupled with at least some of the spacecraft nodes via up/down communication links; and a global fabric manager configured to migrate deterministically from a first networking node selected from the spacecraft and surface nodes to a different networking node selected from the spacecraft and surface nodes after a time period governed by a secret key; to establish a global communication topology among the spacecraft and the surface nodes wherein the global communication topology comprises a plurality of port-to-port data paths, each path defined by a first physical port on one of the spacecraft nodes to a second physical port on one of the surface nodes, the port-to-port paths established by adjusting for speed-of-light latency among wireless spacecraft-to-surface and spacecraft-to-spacecraft links of spacecraft nodes moving relative to each other and to surface nodes disposed between the first and the second physical ports of port-to-port paths within the topology; and to disseminate port-to-port data path mappings among the spacecraft and surface nodes.