Spacecraft-ns3: Spacecraft Discrete-Event Network Simulation

Abstract

As near-Earth space becomes more populated with large constellations of satellites and research into spacecraft autonomy and disaggregation becomes more prevalent, it will be increasingly important to design effective communication procedures between satellites to efficiently share resources and avoid collisions. Though there have been several space networking simulation tools created in recent years, they all lack rigorous astrodynamics models or use high-fidelity but bulky and computationally taxing commercial software. This research presents Spacecraft-ns3, an extension to the ns-3 network simulator. Using a modular approach, Spacecraft-ns3 propagates orbit state, plans discrete events, and analyzes network metrics and flows. A case study using Spacecraft-ns3 is presented for exploratory space network analysis.