Enabling 6G and Beyond Network Functions from Space: Challenges and Opportunities

Cellular networks from space, powered by recent technological advances in satellite mega-constellations, promise to expand operators’ service areas to anywhere on Earth for commercial revenues and social goods. While existing 5G has attempted to support satellites via its non-terrestrial network (NTN) enhancements, its hop-by-hop stateful session-based network architecture impedes this progress due to various functionality, scalability, reliability, and security concerns under the mega-constellation’s extreme mobility in the harsh outer space. This article investigates these issues and explores how to remove this architectural barrier for 6G and beyond from space. We propose a user-centric design that shifts from the hop-by-hop session-based to stateless on-demand cellular service. We discuss how this paradigm shift can stabilize the cellular function inter-networking under extreme satellite mobility, refactor in-orbit cellular functions to be stateless with local user equipment’s assistance, and foster efficient use of satellites for low capital costs and large-scale deployments.