Information rate and quality-of-service configurations for end-to-end data flow in an NGSO satellite network

An edge-node comprising:

• a transceiver configured to communicate with one or more satellites of a non-geosynchronous orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation and one or more user terminals;
• and
• hardware configured by a controller, for minimizing packet losses, to perform:
• updating a forwarding table on a first path used during a handover event and on a second path subsequent to the handover event;
• updating a destination ID for a user terminal of the one or more user terminals and at a satellite, of the one or more satellites, that loses connectivity to the user terminal;
• duplicating packets for the first path and the second path;
• and
• during the handover event, disabling of link-layer segmentation for a duration prior to a link-connectivity change.

A satellite comprising:

• a transceiver configured to communicate with i) one or more satellites of a non-geosynchronous orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation and one or more user terminals;
• and
• hardware configured by a controller, for minimizing packet losses, to perform:
• updating a forwarding table on a first path used during a handover event and on a second path subsequent to the handover event;
• duplicating packets at a source edge-node;
• updating a destination ID for a user terminal of the one or more user terminals at the source edge-node and at a satellite, of the one or more satellites, that loses connectivity to the user terminal;
• disabling of a link-layer for a duration prior to a link-connectivity change;
• and
• re-forwarding the packets that are not be transmitted at the link layer.

A control center comprising:

• a link configured to communicate with one or more satellites of a non-geosynchronous orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation, one or more gateways and a plurality of user terminals;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• control operation of the one or more satellites, the one or more gateways and the plurality of user terminals;
• and
• guarantee end-to-end committed information rate (CIR) and quality of service (QoS) for admitted flows,
• wherein the processor is further configured to verify a valid end-to-end path with adequate capacity for a requested class of service is available by evaluating all time-variant network paths that are encountered due to dynamic attributes of the NGSO satellite constellation and location changes due to mobility of one or more of the plurality of user terminals and provide an alternative class of service that can be supported when the valid end-to-end path for a requested class of service cannot be verified.