Patent attributes
A communication system includes a satellite constellation, one or more gateways and a network controller. The satellite constellation includes multiple satellites to facilitate communication between a number of user terminals (UTs). Each gateway communicates with one or more of the satellites. The network controller controls operation of the satellites, the gateways and the UTs. The satellites, the UTs, the gateways and the network controller include hardware that may also be software-defined network (SDN) enabled to ensure a persistent end-to-end data packet forwarding including proactive updates and reactive updates to forwarding tables. The proactive updates handle deterministic and time-synchronized link connectivity changes and the reactive updates handle ad hoc link connectivity changes.
