POAST: A Delay-Tolerant, Energy-Efficient Blockchain Consensus Protocol for Space Missions”
Keywords:
POAST, Blockchain Simulation, Delay-Tolerant Consensus, Epoch Voting, Trust-Based Validation, Space Communication Systems, Energy-Efficient Blockchain, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Smart Contract Execution, Quorum-Based Consensus, Satellite Network Security, Deep Space BlockchainAbstract
Space missions operate under extreme constraints: high latency, intermittent connectivity, limited power, and the need for absolute security. Traditional blockchain consensus models like PoW, PoS, and PBFT fail to adapt to these conditions, especially when used across autonomous space nodes. POAST (Proof of Authenticated Space-Time) was proposed as a lightweight, permissioned consensus mechanism tailored specifically for space communication environments. This paper presents the complete simulation and performance evaluation of POAST under realistic conditions using Python-based environments and custom datasets. The protocol is benchmarked against PoW, PBFT, and the SAGIN framework across key performance metrics: latency, energy efficiency, fault resilience, and trust convergence. The simulations include use-case scenarios such as Mars rover smart contract execution and epoch-based voting with disconnected nodes. Results clearly demonstrate POAST's superiority in space-specific conditions. It achieves 80–90% lower latency than PBFT under delay, consumes significantly less energy than PoW, and shows stable quorum formation even during validator dropout. This paper closes the design loop of POAST by translating theoretical advantages into validated, mission-ready performance outcomes — establishing it as a future-ready protocol for autonomous interplanetary blockchain systems.
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