A method of operating a satellite communication network is disclosed. The network includes a plurality of satellites interconnected by a plurality of satellite-to-satellite communication links. Each of the plurality of satellites is configured to communicate with at least one ground station using respective ground-satellite communication links. The method includes transmitting a routing table to each of the satellites. Each routing table has a list of destination satellites, and defines at least two possible routes leading to it. An alert message identifying a problem communication link is transmitted to a subset of the plurality of satellites. In response to receiving the alert message, subsequent data packets are routed through the communication network by the satellites using their respective routing table to avoid the problem communication link.