{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T16:56:32Z","timestamp":1790614592421,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"19","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790294400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["U21A20450"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["U21A20450"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["U21A20450"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["U21A20450"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Beam-Hopping (BH) dynamically adjusts beam pointing and dwell time to overcome the rigid resource allocation of traditional fixed beam coverage. This paper addresses the BH scheduling problem in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks for high-priority and time-sensitive services. A system-gain maximization model and a heuristic beam scheduling algorithm (HBSA) that pre-schedules critical traffic and greedily allocates remaining resources under interference and fairness constraints are proposed. Furthermore, this paper extends the framework with a graph reinforcement learning beam-hopping scheduling scheme (GRL-BHS) that captures structural network dependencies for near-optimal adaptive scheduling. Simulations against seven benchmarks show that the HBSA achieves near-optimal gain (within 2% of MWC and GRL-BHS), ensures high-priority satisfaction, maintains a Jain fairness index above 0.84 under heavy load, and reduces signaling overhead by an order of magnitude, while preserving a low polynomial complexity of O(T\u00d7J\u00d7K+T\u00d7K2). GRL-BHS offers the highest gain at the cost of offline training, whereas HBSA is the most balanced and practically deployable solution, providing a solid foundation for future intelligent BH scheduling in mega constellations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26196081","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T10:34:10Z","timestamp":1790332450000},"page":"6081","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Beam-Hopping Scheduling for High-Priority and Time-Sensitive Services in Low-Earth-Orbit Satellite Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7505-6066","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Liang","family":"Gou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communications and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Yulei","family":"Nie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Unit 31150 of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Dapeng","family":"Qi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Unit 96946 of PLA, Beijing 100045, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3246-315X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ziwei","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communications and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Gengxin","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communications and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11679","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2023.3333332","article-title":"Performance Analysis in Satellite Communication with Beam Hopping Using Discrete-Time Queueing Theory","volume":"11","author":"Feng","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sun, H., Jing, W.P., Lu, Z.M., Wen, X.M., and Li, W. 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