Contact plan design for predictable disruption tolerant space sensor networks

Abstract

Today, optical and radar images of our planet from orbit are acquired continuous-ly since they have become powerful scientific tools to enable better understanding and improved management of the Earth and its environment. Traditionally, a singlespace-based satellite sensor gathers data from sites across the world, including places too remote or otherwise inaccessible for ground-based data acquisition. This makes earth observation from space an effective means of providing coverage across bothspace and time. Therefore, an orbiting network of spatially distributed autonomouswireless sensors (Space Sensor Network or SSN [1]) could open new possibilities for unprecedented applications by significantly extending coverage in both dimen-sions. To achieve this, the nodes would need to rely on efficient protocols and algorithms to cooperatively pass sensed data through the network to the final destination in ground.