Space information networks (SINs) are pushing the boundaries of networking into near-Earth orbit and beyond. Nevertheless, the harsh and costly space context forces most risk-prone missions to be designed with minimal chance of failure. The careful consideration of routing protocols used to connect the fleet is by no means the exception. Although decentralized SIN routing schemes have received the most attention of the research community, centralized approaches are captivating the industry, as these come with tighter control and enable troubleshooting of valuable space assets from a mission control center on the ground. In this article, we settle the matter by qualitatively and quantitatively comparing both SIN paradigms. We propose two novel centralized routing schemes, and evaluate their resulting performance against contact graph routing (CGR), the decentralized state of the art. In this evaluation, computational effort, memory utilization, and energy consumption are taken as figures of merit. The outcome provides compelling evidence that centralized routing schemes can safely, successfully, and efficiently connect SINs with up to 10,000 daily contacts, while CGR can be better entrusted with larger-scale SIN deployments.

中文翻译：

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当前和未来空间信息网络的集中式和分散式路由解决方案

空间信息网络 (SIN) 正在将网络的边界推向近地轨道及更远的轨道。然而，严酷且代价高昂的太空环境迫使大多数高风险任务的设计失败的可能性最小。仔细考虑用于连接车队的路由协议绝不是例外。尽管分散的 SIN 路由方案受到了研究界的最大关注，但集中式方法正在吸引整个行业，因为这些方法具有更严格的控制，并且可以从地面任务控制中心对宝贵的空间资产进行故障排除。在本文中，我们通过定性和定量比较两种 SIN 范式来解决这个问题。我们提出了两种新颖的集中式路由方案，并针对接触图路由（CGR）评估了它们的性能，分散的最先进技术。在此评估中，计算工作量、内存利用率和能源消耗被视为品质因数。结果提供了令人信服的证据，表明集中式路由方案可以安全、成功、高效地将 SIN 与多达 10,000 个日常联系人连接起来，而 CGR 可以更好地委托给更大规模的 SIN 部署。