GaliLEO: a simulation tool for LEO satellite constellations

The authors present GaliLEO, a simulator for the transmission of connection-oriented traf.c over a constellation of LEO/MEO (low/medium earth orbit) satellites. Its scope is limited to the satellites and the stations accessing them, without any modelling of the terrestrial network, but inside this scope the goal is to study the performance of satellite-based communication networks from as many possible points of view at the network level. Typical applications include simulation of access techniques, routing policies, and fault management. The simulator is written in Java, and it makes use of dynamic loading to easily integrate user-written modules. A draft manual is available, and a preliminary version of the program was published at the end of 2000.