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Router Tested On Satellite In Space
The Cisco router launched into orbit in September onboard a satellite built by SSTL (and on a Russian rocket) has now been successfully tested in space, and there's a video describing this and putting routers in space. A neat twenty-year coincidence here: an early Surrey satellite has been operating for twenty years, and Cisco launched its fastest router on its twentieth birthday. What do the next twenty years hold for fast routers in space?
The sats that SSTL build are generally earth-obs sats - they're midway through a global monitoring constellation to provide 24/7 distaster and earth monitoring to a group of many countries. The router, therefore, will be being used on the onboard data networks between the system and sensor modules, uplink/downlink, OBC etc. I have a feeling that this is only being tested, so it'll run in parallel with their normal satellite data shunts and their multiple redundant networks.
Being in LEO, it's in the line-of-sight of any one ground station for about 10 minutes at a time, and not on every orbit. Despite the movement, continuous data transmission is entirely possible over LEO constellations - as Iridium's 66 sat constellation shows.
SSTL are micro, mini (and recently nano) sat builders, and they're currently building a test sat for the Gallileo GPS alternative for the European Space Agency.
Why do I know this? My uni course was run in collaboration with them...