Technologies and applications of future satellite networking [Guest Editorial]

The second part of the Feature Topic “Satellite Communications and Networking: Emerging Techniques and New Applications,” published in this issue of IEEE Communications Magazine, presents the overflow from the first part published in the March issue. In the first part, the accent was on a renewed vision of satellite communications and networking that we claim as “Space 2.0” [1] in order to mark a clear discontinuity with the “Space 1.0” era, begun in 1945 with A.C. Clarke’s article “Extra Terrestrial Relays.” The contributions published in the first part mainly focused on techniques that will characterize future satellite networking, such as exploitation of higher frequency bands, cognitive spectrum utilization, delay- and disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs), software-defined networking (SDN), and network virtualization. In the remaining part of the Feature Topic, we aim at shifting the emphasis to the application aspects without losing sight of technological investigation.