LEO Communication Constellation Design Using Street of Coverage (SOC) Technique

Abstract The African Space Agency aims to unify the available resources across the African Continent. One of these resources includes communication services and internet connectivity to cover African areas. To achieve this goal, this study proposes a standalone system, namely a satellite constellation system applying the Street of Coverage (SOC) method. This method includes three configurations, inclined orbit, symmetrical polar orbit, and non-symmetrical polar orbit. A Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is considered due to its advantage in its low latency, making it ideal for communication purposes. A mathematical model governing the SOC constellation is deduced. Results are visualized and analyzed using the System Tool Kit (STK) application. A validation case is proposed by comparing consistency with a well-known satellite constellation OneWeb produced by the international company Eutelsatgroup. Two potential satellite constellations are proposed to provide coverage across underserved African areas. In the first configuration, the symmetric polar constellation is utilized with 612 satellites uniformly distributed along 18 planes. This system is characterized by its low cost, high efficiency, and optimum performance as a standalone solution. In the second configuration, the equatorial satellite constellation with 25 satellites uniformly distributed along the equatorial plane is analyzed. This configuration is a more economical solution that uses fewer satellites and relies on back-hauling between available communication networks.