Maximizing the Throughput of Nanosatellites via Ad-hoc Multi Ground-Stations

Nanosatellites are becoming a preferred platform for testing innovative technologies and conducting academic research in space. The growing number of nanosatellites generates a massive amount of data that should be transmitted to dedicated ground stations. Nanosatellites typically have relatively narrow bandwidth and their expected visibility is about 1% of the time, assuming a single ground station and a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Therefore, the effective throughput of nanosatellites is limited. This research presents the concept of multi-ground stations, such as TinyGS [1], which deploys hundreds of low-cost ground stations to "listen" to the "nearest" nanosatellite, using LoRa. In particular, the communication performance of our picosatellite, named SATLLA-2B, demonstrates the collaborative potential of the proposed model after completing a full operational year in LEO.