Rethink Web Service Resilience in Space: A Radiation-Aware and Sustainable Transmission Solution
This addresses the critical gap in efficient network-layer mitigation for space-based web services, enabling more reliable global connectivity, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing radiation-aware approaches.
The paper tackles the problem of web service resilience in LEO satellite networks being threatened by space radiation, which degrades hardware and drains batteries, by proposing RALT, a radiation-aware control-plane solution that dynamically reroutes traffic during radiation events to minimize battery degradation and sustain service performance.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks such as Starlink and Project Kuiper are increasingly integrated with cloud infrastructures, forming an important internet backbone for global web services. By extending connectivity to remote regions, oceans, and disaster zones, these networks enable reliable access to applications ranging from real-time WebRTC communication to emergency response portals. Yet the resilience of these web services is threatened by space radiation: it degrades hardware, drains batteries, and disrupts continuity, even if the space-cloud integrated providers use machine learning to analyze space weather and radiation data. Specifically, conventional fixes like altitude adjustments and thermal annealing consume energy; neglecting this energy use results in deep discharge and faster battery aging, whereas sleep modes risk abrupt web session interruptions. Efficient network-layer mitigation remains a critical gap. We propose RALT (Radiation-Aware LEO Transmission), a control-plane solution that dynamically reroutes traffic during radiation events, accounting for energy constraints to minimize battery degradation and sustain service performance. Our work shows that unlocking space-based web services' full potential for global reliable connectivity requires rethinking resilience through the lens of the space environment itself.