  The use of satellites to provide ubiquitous coverage and connectivity for the
densely deployed Internet of Things (IoT) networks are expected to be a reality
in the emerging 6G networks. Yet, the low battery capacity is of IoT nodes
constitute a problem for the direct connectivity to satellites that are located
up to 2000 km altitude. As an architectural novelty, in this paper, we propose
the use of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) units to help with the path
loss associated with high transmission distances. The use of RIS units through
broadcasting and beamforming approaches are shown to provide a significant gain
in terms of their signal transmission. These units can be placed on the
reflectarrays that are already available on the satellites. It is shown that
RIS-assisted satellites can provide up to 10^5 times higher downlink and uplink
achievable rates for IoT networks.
