SateLight: A Satellite Application Update Framework for Satellite Computing

2025-09-16

AI Summary

Satellite computing faces significant challenges in application updates due to high hardware heterogeneity, severely constrained ground-to-satellite bandwidth, and harsh space environments; conventional terrestrial update methods fail as they rely on stable connectivity and abundant computational resources. This paper proposes a lightweight and efficient satellite application update framework that innovatively integrates containerized application packaging, content-aware delta transmission, fine-grained onboard incremental updates, and a hierarchical fault-tolerant recovery mechanism. Evaluated in both simulation and real on-orbit environments, the framework achieves, compared to the best-performing baseline: an average end-to-end transmission latency reduction of 56.54% (up to 91.18%), 100% update correctness, and robust resilience against communication disruptions and hardware faults—demonstrating strong practical deployability for operational satellite systems.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Search and Optimization: Applications
• Multiagent Systems: Applications

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Data management and stream processing for Web, mobile and wireless applications
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web learning to rank, online learning, and counterfactual learning for ranking
• Responsible Web: Consent frameworks and practices on the web

Abstract

Satellite computing is an emerging paradigm that empowers satellites to perform onboard processing tasks (i.e., extit{satellite applications}), thereby reducing reliance on ground-based systems and improving responsiveness. However, enabling application software updates in this context remains a fundamental challenge due to application heterogeneity, limited ground-to-satellite bandwidth, and harsh space conditions. Existing software update approaches, designed primarily for terrestrial systems, fail to address these constraints, as they assume abundant computational capacity and stable connectivity. To address this gap, we propose SateLight, a practical and effective satellite application update framework tailored for satellite computing. SateLight leverages containerization to encapsulate heterogeneous applications, enabling efficient deployment and maintenance. SateLight further integrates three capabilities: (1) a content-aware differential strategy that minimizes communication data volume, (2) a fine-grained onboard update design that reconstructs target applications, and (3) a layer-based fault-tolerant recovery mechanism to ensure reliability under failure-prone space conditions. Experimental results on a satellite simulation environment with 10 representative satellite applications demonstrate that SateLight reduces transmission latency by up to 91.18% (average 56.54%) compared to the best currently available baseline. It also consistently ensures 100% update correctness across all evaluated applications. Furthermore, a case study on a real-world in-orbit satellite demonstrates the practicality of our approach.

Problem

• Enabling software updates for heterogeneous satellite applications
• Overcoming limited bandwidth and harsh space conditions
• Ensuring reliable updates despite computational constraints

Innovation

• Containerization for heterogeneous application encapsulation
• Content-aware differential strategy minimizing communication volume
• Layer-based fault-tolerant recovery ensuring update reliability