A free-space optical mesh network comprising: three or more nodes, each node having: an optical communication aperture and at least one tracking aperture (212a-212d) to provide optical beam hopping capability, a network processor , an RF terminal , and a network node controller , wherein each node is configured to connect to at least two remote nodes (104/106) using an optical link; a network topology defining a configuration of traffic links between the three or more nodes, in which at least two of the nodes are configured to be connected such that a data path is established among the connected nodes; wherein the network is configured to communicate states of the nodes and states of the traffic links between the three or more nodes over an RF network formed between each of the RF terminals; wherein each network processor is configured to participate in a distributed calculation of primary and back-up routes for the topology and to store the results of the distributed calculation; and wherein, if a traffic link impairment or a node impairment is detected via the RF network at one of the nodes, the network processor of said node is configured to instruct the node controller of said node to switch the configuration of traffic links of the topology from the primary route to one of the back-up routes, and wherein the node controller is configured to adjust the configuration of the traffic links between the three or more nodes in the network topology to reroute traffic data around the impairment. three or more nodes, each node having: an optical communication aperture and at least one tracking aperture (212a-212d) to provide optical beam hopping capability, a network processor , an RF terminal , and a network node controller , wherein each node is configured to connect to at least two remote nodes (104/106) using an optical link; an optical communication aperture and at least one tracking aperture (212a-212d) to provide optical beam hopping capability, a network processor , an RF terminal , and a network node controller , wherein each node is configured to connect to at least two remote nodes (104/106) using an optical link; a network topology defining a configuration of traffic links between the three or more nodes, in which at least two of the nodes are configured to be connected such that a data path is established among the connected nodes; wherein the network is configured to communicate states of the nodes and states of the traffic links between the three or more nodes over an RF network formed between each of the RF terminals; wherein each network processor is configured to participate in a distributed calculation of primary and back-up routes for the topology and to store the results of the distributed calculation; and wherein, if a traffic link impairment or a node impairment is detected via the RF network at one of the nodes, the network processor of said node is configured to instruct the node controller of said node to switch the configuration of traffic links of the topology from the primary route to one of the back-up routes, and wherein the node controller is configured to adjust the configuration of the traffic links between the three or more nodes in the network topology to reroute traffic data around the impairment. <EOS>