LEO Satellite Network Resilience Analysis: A Focus on Critical Satellites

The rapid development of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology is revolutionizing global internet infrastructure. However, limited work has been conducted on network resilience for the next generation of satellite networks based on Inter-Satellite Links (ISLs). This study investigates LEO satellite network resilience under possible physical damage to ISLs-based satellite constellations using Starlink Shell 1 and Kuiper Shell 3 as a case study. We demonstrate the geographical distribution of critical satellites and reveal that the malfunction of these critical satellite results in a significant increase in the workload of the remaining satellites, thereby notably reducing the overall communication performance of the satellite network.