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Paris, at Cnam: NTN Days 2026 on 13–14 October, which I co-organise with V. Conan and P. Gu and where I also give a talk. Then, on Thursday 15 October at 4 pm, a Cnam seminar: AI for Space, Space for AI: the rise and limits of the space cloud.

Two of my PhD students are among the ten finalists of the IEEE Competition on Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN'26) 🛰️ 🎉

🟠 Transmit Less, Deliver More: Alexander Ylnner Choquenaira Florez, PhD student at Inria Lyon.
🔵 Mostly Asleep: Dr. Camilo Rojas Milla, PhD from the University of Genoa.

Two layers, one shared idea: in space, the most sustainable operation is often the one you skip.

The top 3 will be announced on 12 October at SCS26 in Riyadh. Camilo will be there to present both works, his own and Alex's.

Congratulations to both! Many thanks to my fellow supervisors Hervé Rivano and Fabio Patrone, and to the IEEE ComSoc Satellite & Space Communications TC and CST for organizing the competition Gunes Karabulut Kurt Giovanni Giambene Tomaso de Cola.

🔗 scs26.sa/ieee-competition-ntn26

#NonTerrestrialNetworks #SpaceSustainability #DirectToSatellite #OrbitalComputing #NTN

🛸 STINT 2026 is a wrap 🛸

Two days at the Irish College in Leuven 🇧🇪, co-located with IEEE WiSEE 2026, for the 13th edition of the Space-Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop 🛰️.

The programme
🔸 4 keynotes: Ed Birrane (Tolero Networks), Marius Feldmann (D3TN), Felix Flentge (ESA), Dr. Alberto Montilla (Spatiam)
🔸 4 invited talks, 10 peer-reviewed papers, 9 posters
🔸 Dedicated MISSION (mission-project.eu) and D3-CONNECT (d3-connect.space) sessions
🔸 A closing panel on where DTN and the Internet meet, with Kanglian Zhao (Nanjing University) joining the keynote speakers

Slides and photos from both days are online: stintworkshops.org

Thank you to Ali Abedi and the IEEE WiSEE team, to KU Leuven for the venue, and to our sponsors D3TN, IPNSIG and the MISSION project.

STINT 2027 is in planning. Watch this space.

#DTN #SpaceNetworking #DelayTolerantNetworking #IEEEWiSEE #InterplanetaryInternet

🚀 Come to STINT 2026 next week!

Join us in Leuven, Belgium, on Sep 14–15 for the Space-Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop, co-located with IEEE WiSEE 2026.

We have a great programme of peer-reviewed papers, posters, invited talks, keynotes, and a panel discussion.

👉 Programme & details: stintworkshops.org

Hope to see you there! 🛰️🌍

#STINT2026 #SpaceNetworking #DTN #SatelliteNetworks #WiSEE2026

🚀 Last call for talks — NTN Days 2026! (October 13–14 in Paris 🇫🇷)

If you are working on Non-Terrestrial Networks and would like to share your latest work, there is still time to propose a talk.

👉 No full paper required — just a title and a short abstract.

📅 Official submission deadline: September 4.

And, well… the submission form is unlikely to turn into a pumpkin exactly at midnight 😉 But earlier is definitely better!

🔗 ntndays.space

#NTNDays #NTN #SatelliteCommunications #6G #5G #SatelliteNetworks #SpaceCommunications #IoT #DTN

Dark Clouds Rising in Low-Earth Orbit, on the environmental limits of orbital AI, at the LEO-NET workshop of ACM SIGCOMM in Denver.

Our SPACE RG 🛰️ session at IETF 126 in Vienna brought together around 100 participants again. 🚀

We heard invited talks spanning the next waves of LEO satellite deployments, the Limitations of LEO uplinks, requirements and challenges for Industrial communication over NTN, and comparative approaches to Standardized routing for LEO constellations.

The group also moved ongoing work forward with updates on:
🧩  a code for describing satellite constellations; and
🔭 a typology of space research infrastructures.

A big thank-you to Dan York, Liz Izhikevich, Florian Zeiger, Lin Han, Maxime Piraux, Nishanth Sastry, and everyone who joined the discussion - in Vienna and remotely.

▶️ Watch the full session:
youtu.be/cCir6Oqjzq0

🔗 Learn more about SPACE RG:
datatracker.ietf.org/rg/space/about

#IETF126 #IRTF #SpaceNetworking #SatelliteNetworks #LEO #NTN #InternetResearch

Building a space network? 🛰️ Meet Contact Plan Designer: the open-source, contact-plan tooling at solar-system scale.

🔭 Compute — light-time-corrected contacts, multi-body occlusion, range, elevation, antenna cone, per-contact OWLT.
📊 Visualize — an editable 2D timeline + a to-scale 3D CesiumJS viewer + a live stats dashboard.
🧩 Design — the Fair Contact Plan solver resolves interface conflicts, prioritizing starved links so none get left behind.
📤 Export — ION · HDTN · TVR · IPN-V · STK Access/AER · Sunlight windows.

All from one pure-Python core (CLI, web app, or library).

Try it here! Happy to receive feedback 👉 contact-plan-designer.space

#DTN #SpaceNetworks #OpenSource #Aerospace #ION #InterplanetaryInternet

Today Dr. Jason Gerard defended his PhD at Concordia University, and the committee's verdict was unanimous: Outstanding. 🎓🛰️

It has been a huge honour and a genuine pleasure to co-supervise Jason alongside Sandra Céspedes over these years.

Three papers capture the arc of his Contact Plan Design for Interplanetary and Near-Earth Optical Backhaul Networks thesis:

🪐 Contact Plan Design for Optical Interplanetary Communications (arXiv:2601.18148)
🎯 Modeling Pointing, Acquisition, and Tracking Delays in Free-Space Optical Satellite Networks (IEEE WiSEE 2025)
🌐 Autonomous Max-Flow Interplanetary Laser Link Scheduling for Martian Exploration (IEEE WiSEE 2024)

My sincere thanks to the examining committee for their careful reading and sharp questions.

I look forward to what comes next. 🚀

Jason Gerard Sandra Céspedes Gunes Karabulut Kurt

#PhD #SpaceCommunications #OpticalCommunications #DeepSpace #FreeSpaceOptics #Concordia #DTN

Santiago Martín Henn has just defended his PhD thesis entitled:

"Models and algorithms for the design and optimization of space missions based on small satellite constellations"

at the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales of the UNC.

It was a huge pleasure to supervise Santi, now my friend, through a thesis at the intersection of astrodynamics and computer science, a line of work that spans both papers he led and standout collaborations:

🛰️ S. M. Henn, J. A. Fraire, and H. Hermanns, "Polygon-Based Algorithms for N-Satellite Constellations Coverage Computing," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 7166–7182, 2023.

📡 G. Maiolini Capez, S. Henn, J. A. Fraire, and R. Garello, "Sparse Satellite Constellation Design for Global and Regional Direct-to-Satellite IoT Services," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 58, no. 5, pp. 3786–3801, 2022.

🔭 R. Ortigueira, S. Montejo-Sánchez, S. Henn, J. A. Fraire, and S. Céspedes, "Satellite Visibility Prediction for Constrained Devices in Direct-to-Satellite IoT Systems," IEEE Sensors Journal, 2024.

🌐 J. A. Fraire, S. Henn, G. Stock, R. Ohs, G. Stock, H. Hermanns, et al., "Quantitative Analysis of Segmented Satellite Network Architectures: A Maritime Surveillance Case Study," Computer Networks, vol. 255, art. 110874, 2024.

Congratulations, Dr. Henn. Proud of you. 🎓

🚀 Final reminder: submissions for the 2026 Space–Terrestrial Internetworking (STINT) Workshop close on June 15, 2026 — no extension planned. Accepted papers will be published in IEEE Xplore.

I want to highlight the outstanding keynote lineup we will have at STINT 2026:
🎤 Edward Birrane (Johns Hopkins APL)
🎤 Marius Feldmann (D3TN GmbH)
🎤 Felix Flentge (European Space Agency)
🎤 Alberto Montilla (Spatiam Corporation)

Looking forward to the discussions around 🛰️ Space networking, 🌍 DTN, 🔗 Space–terrestrial integration, 📡 Non-terrestrial networks, and the ⚡ Future of the Solar System Internet.

🌐 STINT 2026 Workshop Website: stintworkshops.org

Together with Mario Marchese and Fabio Patrone, we are looking for candidates for a fully funded PhD position — 🛰️ AI for Space Cloud & Non-Terrestrial Networks @ University of Genoa (Italy 🇮🇹)

📌 Research topic: Design of AI-based communication and computation resource allocation solutions in space cloud architectures for non-terrestrial networks.

🗓️ Key dates
• Application deadline: 9 July 2026, 12:00 (CEST)
• Results: early September 2026
• PhD start: 1 November 2026

✅ Good to know
• 2–3 reference letters are recommended
• How to apply: unige.it/en/students/phd-programmes

📬 Interested? Reach out!

#PhD #SatelliteCommunications #NonTerrestrialNetworks #6G #EdgeComputing #ArtificialIntelligence #SpaceCloud #LEO #ResearchOpportunity #UniversityOfGenoa #PhDposition

🚀 The call for papers for the 2026 Space-Terrestrial Internetworking (STINT) Workshop is now open — submissions due June 15, 2026!

STINT brings together researchers and practitioners working on:
🛰️ Space networking
🌍 Delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN)
📡 Satellite and non-terrestrial networks
🔗 Space-terrestrial integration
⚡ Resilient and future Internet architectures

Accepted papers will be presented at STINT 2026 at KU Leuven, Belgium, and published in IEEE Xplore.

If you’ve been working on something exciting in this space, now is the time to submit and contribute to the discussion!

📅 Submission deadline: June 15, 2026
🔗 stintworkshops.org

Please share with colleagues, students, and collaborators who may be interested!

We’ve just wrapped up a fantastic MISSION workshop at ETAPS in Turin, Italy 🚀

Inspiring talks at the intersection of formal methods 🧩 and space systems 🛰️.

Curious to learn more❓ Check out the program and feel free to reach out: mission-project.eu/etaps2026

🚀 Our SPACE Research Group session at IETF 125 has just wrapped up.

Great discussions on key challenges shaping the future of space networking:
🛰️ Networking for space data centers
🌌 Deep-space protocols
📡 Internet constellation design and operations

The agenda is attached 👇 and the recording is available here: youtu.be/_8di28XxLBw

👉 Next stop: IETF 126 in Vienna (July) — don’t miss it.

More about the SPACE RG: datatracker.ietf.org/rg/space/about

cc. Jörg Ott & Nishanth Sastry

#IETF #SpaceNetworking #DTN #Satellite #InternetOfSpace #Research #Aerospace #Networking

In the context of the MISSION project (mission-project.eu), we had the pleasure of running a workshop at the AI School of Shenzhen Technology University (#SZTU) on March 12th and 13th.

Great discussions on the role of computer science at the intersection of robotics, AI, and space systems, and the opportunities this convergence opens for future research.

A big thank you to Lijun Zhang for the excellent organization and for bringing together such an engaged audience!

Three PhD defenses in one week 🚀

I am soooo happy and proud to have co-supervised three outstanding PhD students who successfully defended their theses this week across three different European institutions 🇫🇷🇮🇹.

1️⃣ Diego Maldonado Munoz
📍 INSA Lyon, Université de Lyon (France)
🎓 Estimation, Scalability, Robustness, and Coordination Methods for Direct-to-Satellite IoT
🤝 Co-supervised with Prof. Hervé Rivano

2️⃣ Camilo Jose Rojas Milla
📍 Università di Genova (Italy)
🎓 Design, Emulation, and Control of Edge Computing Systems for the Space Cloud in LEO Satellite Networks
🤝 Co-supervised with Prof. Mario Marchese and Prof. Fabio Patrone

3️⃣ Gabriel Maiolini Capez
📍 Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
🎓 Communication Frameworks and Architectures for Non-Terrestrial Networks: from Radio Interface Evaluation to Constellation Design
🤝 Co-supervised with Prof. Roberto Garello

Three theses, three institutions, one vision: advancing space and non-terrestrial networks through international collaboration 🌍

In space, we truly have no frontiers. The challenges are plenty, and tackling them requires strong cross-border cooperation. This week has been a perfect illustration of that spirit.

Congratulations to my Latin American fellows — Diego, Camilo Rojas Milla, and Gabriel — on this major milestone! 🎉
It has been a privilege to accompany you on this journey!

Just back from an inspiring week at Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (LZI), where I had the privilege of participating in the “Connected Space” seminar.

Dagstuhl seminars are indeed truly unique: designed to foster deep technical exchange among leading experts from academia and industry.

Space is rapidly becoming a computing and networking platform, not just a communications infrastructure. The seminar helped crystallize some of the field’s main future research directions.

Many thanks to the organizers, Nitinder Mohan, Nishanth Sastry, and Paulo Milheiro Mendes, for bringing together such an outstanding group.

🔗 dagstuhl.de/seminars/seminar-calendar/se…

#Dagstuhl #SatelliteNetworking #SpaceComputing #NTN #LEO #Research #Inria

🚀 SPACE RG — First Official Meeting at IETF 124 (Montreal)

Today (Nov 6), we (with Jörg Ott, Nishanth Sastry) held the first official meeting of the IRTF Research Group on SPACE at IETF 124 in Montreal, following two earlier side meetings at IETF 122 and 123.

The turnout: ~90 participants onsite + remote, demonstrating the growing momentum around networking research for LEO mega-constellations, lunar infrastructure, and deep-space systems. Our technical agenda covered:

✅ Streaming over LEO — Netflix presented lessons learned in adaptive bitrate and congestion control.
✅ Laser links & scheduling — Amazon Kuiper discussed the challenges of integrating optical downlinks in mega-constellations.
✅ AI-enabled constellations — New tools for simulation, analysis, and testbeds.
✅ Real-world measurements — Live results on end-to-end performance across operational LEO systems.
✅ New drafts — A proposed framework to simplify constellation classification and enumeration.

Beyond our own work, SPACE RG aims to feed and collaborate with other groups across the IETF/IRTF ecosystem — including DTN, TIPTOP, and TVR — to help align architectures, metrics, and protocol evolution 🌍🛰️📡.

If you’re interested in contributing to the research agenda, join us:

🔗 SPACE RG page: datatracker.ietf.org/rg/space/about
🔗 Mailing list: mailman3.irtf.org/mailman3/lists/space.i…
🔗 Meeting materials (IETF 124): datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/124/session…

🎓 A Tutorial on Simulating Direct-to-Satellite IoT Networks with OMNeT++ and FLoRaSat 🚀

Proud to share that my PhD student, Alexander Ylnner Choquenaira Florez (Inria), with the support of Benoit Coeugnet (my PhD at Kinéis), presented our tutorial at the IEEE LatinCom 2025 in Antigua, Guatemala 🇬🇹 (5–7 November).

The session introduced FLoRaSat, our open-source simulator for Direct-to-Satellite IoT networks, and demonstrated its integration with OMNeT++ for large-scale experiments.

📺 Watch the tutorial video here: youtu.be/cdZtY82nTqA

#SatelliteIoT #OMNeTpp #FLoRaSat #NonTerrestrialNetworks #Inria #Kineis #LatinCom2025

🚀 IETF 124 is underway in Montreal!

🛜 At the IRTF Open Meeting, Renata Teixeira from Netflix kicked off the week with a fascinating keynote, sparking great discussions on how low-Earth-orbit (LEO) constellations are reshaping end-to-end data delivery — including streaming and congestion control across space networks.

🎙️ The conversation continues at our upcoming SPACE RG (Systems and Protocol Aspects for Circumstellar Environments) session this Thursday, November 6, from 9:30–11:00 AM (room Laurier).

🛰️ Check out the full agenda here:
👉 datatracker.ietf.org/doc/agenda-124-space

🌐 More about the SPACE RG:
👉 datatracker.ietf.org/group/space/about

If you’re at IETF 124 — come join us for this exciting discussion on the future of space-terrestrial networking!

#IETF124 #IRTF #SpaceNetworking #NonTerrestrialNetworks #LEO #SatelliteInternet #DTN #SpaceRG

🚀 STINT 2025 is about to start!
The Space–Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop — the forum for Delay-Tolerant and Space Networking research — is kicking off today in Halifax, Canada, co-located with IEEE WiSEE 2025 🌍✨

Join us on-site or remotely to discuss the future of interplanetary and non-terrestrial networking!

📅 October 13–15, 2025
📍 Halifax, NS, Canada
💻 Hybrid Access Available

👉 stintworkshops.org

#STINT2025 #SpaceNetworking #DelayTolerantNetworking #NonTerrestrialNetworks #WiSEE2025

🚀 NTN Days 2025 was a success!

More than 70 participants gathered at LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, bringing together industry leaders and top researchers shaping the future of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN).

Highlights included insightful talks from Ericsson, Thales Alenia Space, Kinéis, and leading academics from institutions across France.

Missed it this year? Don’t worry — we’ll be back! Stay tuned for NTN Days 2026 in Paris 🇫🇷 - More info: ntndays.space

SPACE RG @ IETF Madrid: packed room, strong signal 🚀

Last week, we ran the second side‑meeting for the (proposed) IRTF SPACE RG — and it was a clear success: ~60 people on‑site + several 10s remote, spanning space agencies, industry, and academia. The key takeaway: interest in space networking at the IETF/IRTF is strong!

🛰️What SPACE RG is about (in one line):
Systems and protocol adaptations for aerospace networks — from HAPS and LEO/MEO/GEO to cislunar and beyond — where mobility, partitions, and constrained resources challenge terrestrial assumptions.

🎯Our initial goals:
Build an open data repository for aerospace networks, define reproducible evaluation methodologies, establish best practices and reference scenarios, and foster shared measurement infrastructures.

👉 Join us / Stay in the loop
Subscribe: mailman3.irtf.org/mailman3/lists/space.i…
Repository & materials: github.com/irtf-spacerg

Proposed co-chairs: Juan Andrés Fraire & Jörg Ott (with support from Nishanth Sastry).

#IETF #IRTF #SPACE_RG #AerospaceNetworks #NonTerrestrialNetworks #SatCom #HAPS #LEO #Cislunar #DTN #6G #NetworkingResearch #Reproducibility #OpenData

On the potential of DTN to enable efficient cross-agency data transfer from remote interplanetary spacecraft directly to the end user.

At the always amazing #IEEE #ICC conference in Rome.

Proudly sharing the stage with A. Miguel San Martin at the Ekoparty Security Conference today!

Check the latest tutorials on how to deploy and use uD3TN: the lightwight DTN protocol stack:

The STINT workshop is shaping up. Vinton Cerf vint cerf, VP Internet Evangelist at Google joins as keynote this year. Don't miss it. Paper deadline March 15th! stintworkshops.org

Constellation managent solutions based on state of the art computer science with GomSpace

Do not miss our #IEEE #WiSEE conference next week! We have a great offer of keynote speakers and top-notch papers on applying #Wireless technologies to #Space and #Extreme environments.

And everything conveniently virtual for you to attend!

Deal with that Internet protocols - this very phenomenon is what makes space networking a particular and passionate research field.

Lecturing on #SpaceInformatics - our block course happening now at Saarland University, Saarbruecken.

Great discussions on space networking routing and contact planning at @smcit_conf, Pasadena, California!

Next Apr 23, we will be presenting Skyloom Global at the entrepreneurs event organized by Agencia Córdoba Innovar y Emprender and ASEA, at the Centro Cultural Córdoba. Do not miss it!

Today with Andres Rodriguez we pitched Skyloom Global in Thales Alenia Space, Toulouse, France. Thales is one of the biggest satellite manufacturers in the world and might play an important role in supporting our worldwide connectivity service. #SpaceInternet.

Dancing in the Delay-Tolerant frontier, tomorrow's seminar at LAAS-CNRS, our colleagues from Toulouse, France.

We are releasing Network Toolkit Automator, which controls AGI (Analytical Graphics, Inc.) #STK to generate #LEO constellations in batch mode enabling unique parametric tradeoff analysis. Reach us to try it out!

Today I presented how we, at Skyloom Global, plan to support the exponential grow of the space connectivity market. This was at the #DVNArgentina event organized by Draper Cygnus.

The Space-Terrestrial Internetworking (#STINT) Workshops addresses data exchange challenges between and among space-based and terrestrial network nodes. Submissions are opened for the Fundamental and Applied research workshops. Deadline: May 18th. stintworkshops.org

We have just released the STINT workshops series web page. A Fundamental Research workshop will be held in China, and an Applied Research Workshop will be held in USA, both by mid 2019. Contributions are opened! stintworkshops.org

We have released our new Satellite Constellation Designer as an #STK plugin, an AGI (Analytical Graphics, Inc.) software. Check this video out and reach us if interested!

I have just received a printed copy of the "DTN: Interplanetary and Earth-Bound" book where we have collaborated with a "DTN of Things" chapter. A great pleasure working with Aloizio Silva and Scott Burleigh in this manuscript.

Robert Lightfoot, former NASA administrator, giving a great talk about risk and leading changes in space industry. At #WiSEE2018 banquet with almost 200 attendees!

I'm very happy of receiving this recognition from the IEEE Wireless for Space and Extreme Environment #WiSEE2018 community. This is the 2018 edition of the event in #Huntsville, #Alabama, the city were the Saturn V rocket that took the man to the Moon was built. Fantastic moment!

We are kicking off #WiSEE2018 in Alabama, USA, with great talks from NASA Marshall Space-Center representatives. Which are the inhibitors and enablers for replacing wires with wireless technologies in future NASA space missions?

Today we are discussing about how we are supporting CONAE in the definition of future enabler technologies for the national space plan at #JAEA2018, Congreso de la Nacion, Buenos Aires.

Now that NASA Insight has landed, a small infographic about the three assets currently "operative" on Mars surface, their size, cost and location in the red planet. The quotes in "operative" are because of the Opportunity rover from which we have not received any updates for more than 5 months already...

A small infographics comparing two popular micro-launchers from PLD Space and Rocket Lab, having the latter a successful launch yesterday. The space access model is wide open: big and cheap vs small and tailored orbit positioning? Room for both models? Interesting struggle!

Delay-Tolerant Satellite Network (DTSN) posters packed, DTSN tutorial almost perfect, boarding passes to Valdivia, Chile ready... there we go School on Systems and Networks!

A great course in Universität des Saarlandes. After 10 lectures, 10 practical modules and tutorials, we have covered distributed missions, orbital calculations, launch, maneuvers, communications and networking. Next week, Lars Krogh Alminde, GomSpace founder will join and discuss a bunch more!

Our commentary letter was picked up by SpaceNews on its prestigious publication covering business and political news in the space industry. We discuss on-going challenges in Networking the Space-Terrestrial Frontier. Full magazine: cdn.coverstand.com/27668/507608/edbf20b4…

The IEEE Space-Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop (STINT) is going for its 5th edition in Huntisville, AL, USA. Great speakers from NASA, CSA, ESA will enable unprecedented exchanges between academy, government and industry. Submit your paper before Aug 1st and join us! stintworkshops.org