Reconfigurable intelligent surface-enhanced satellite networks: deployment strategies, key capabilities, practical solutions, and future directions

Satellite networks promise 6G coverage, but blockage and spectrum coexistence constrain performance. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) can redirect signals and reshape wireless environments for satellite networks. This perspective investigates RIS-enhanced satellite networks, distilling four typical RIS deployment strategies as transceivers or relays, presenting key capabilities for seamless coverage and spectrum sharing, providing practical solutions to dominant signaling and hardware challenges, and discussing promising future directions for enhanced integration.