## 1 Introduction  
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using the differential force (i.e., the difference between the aerodynamic drag forces applied to the satellites) to eliminate the relative drift between the satellites in a swarm moving in a group (without the mandatory requirement to maintain relative position, cf. [1, 2, 3]). Various control algorithms using differential aerodynamic drag have been proposed in numerous publications, see [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. One of the fundamental publications is the work by [PERSON] [17] where, based on the assumption of the possibility of changing the effective cross-section of satellites, a method of switching control has been developed. The differential force is created by changing the attack angles of the plates, located on the satellites, due to the rotation of the satellites with respect to the incident airflow. [PERSON] et al. [18] deal with a satellite constellation, consisting of a leader satellite and surrounding slave ones. The orbit of the leader is considered as a reference, whilst the relative orbits of the followers are considered to be the Projected Circular Orbit (PCO), which is the relative orbit between the master and slave satellites,being a circular one when it is projected onto the local horizontal plane [19]. PCO predicted distances [20] between master and slave satellites are constant. The Hill-Clohessy-Witshire (HCW) equation describes the relative motion between the satellites in the local reference frame Local Vertical Local Horizontal (LVLH), with the origin on the master satellite. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [21] considered the problem of constructing a swarm from a large number of nanosatellites immediately after their separation from the launcher. To solve the problem of eliminating the drift between satellites, in [21] the decentralized control based on the force of aerodynamic drag is employed. In the decentralized control of satellite formations, the problem of inter-satellite communication is very important. This communication is needed for navigation data exchange between the satellites. Particularly, [PERSON] et al. [22] presented innovative approaches for the guidance of spacecraft formations during reconfiguration. The method is conceived such that each satellite autonomously determines its tasks, allowing the algorithm to run faster, but entails a higher traffic on the inter-satellite communication link. Therefore the inter-satellite communication problem is a challenging one and attracts considerable interest of many researchers. The electron density irregularities caused by ionosphering turbulence, scatterring radio waves, and affecting satellite communication were taken into account in [23]. Delay tolerant networking (DTN) protocols, such as bundle protocol and medium access control (MAC) were considered by [PERSON] et al. [24] as appropriate approaches for networks with intermittent connectivity such as deep space or low Earth orbit networks. A contact plan design approach was presented in [24] that solved the MAC problem by predicting additive multi-node interference and scheduling interference-free links based on these predictions. In [25], the algorithm called parallel data transmission for the navigation satellite network with agility link was proposed. Based on the network characteristics, the algorithm was designed with a polling pattern of link establishment and formulated as parallel data transmission problem based on deterministic scheduling the delay tolerant network. [PERSON] et al. [26] presented a complete software-defined radio (SDR) model for inter-satellite communications and its implementation on a field-programmable gate array. The proposed SDR has low power consumption, which is suitable for power-limited small satellite systems. [PERSON] et al. [27] presented the results of a study exploring concepts for improving communications and tracking capabilities of deep space SmallSats.