On the Topology Scaling of Interplanetary Networks

The increase of deep space (DS) exploration missions suggests that it would be difficult for the existing interplanetary networks (IPNs) to cope with the growing interplanetary data transfer (IP-DT) demands without topology scaling. Therefore, this paper studies how to expand an IPN by deploying new relay satellites and optimizing their orbit parameters in account of the routing and scheduling of IP-DTs, such that the improvement on the IPN's overall performance can be maximized. We formulate an optimization model to tackle the IPN topology scaling problem and propose an effective heuristic for time-efficient problem-solving. Simulations verify the performance of our proposal.