Incremental Deployment
Definition
Unlike terrestrial network infrastructure, the deployment stage of LSNs faces complex costs and constraints. In particular, satellites must be be launched atop booster vehicles and maneuvered into the desired orbital trajectories. This implies LSN operators must carefully decide when and from where to schedule satellites launches and how to maneuver satellites from the initial launch orbit into their specified orbits in the constellation geometry.
What happens?
Although technically separate from runtime considerations of LSN performance and efficiency, lack of concrete approaches to addressing basic deployment challenges limit the clarity of the path from LSN research proposals to real-world impact.
Takeaways
Deployment overheads should be included in consideration of aggregate LSN costs. For example, certain constellations may be less expensive to deploy while achieving slightly lower networking performance and hence achieve a better overall cost-benefit tradeoff compared to constellations that are more expensive to deploy while achieving better networking performance.