| CPC H04B 7/18541 (2013.01) [H04B 7/18532 (2013.01); H04W 72/1263 (2013.01); H04W 76/11 (2018.02)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method for performing a handover operation, the method comprising:
initiating, by one or more processors of a non-terrestrial node, communication with a first terrestrial node of a network and a second terrestrial node of the network, the first terrestrial node having a first unique node identifier and a cell identifier, the second terrestrial node having a second unique node identifier and the cell identifier, wherein the non-terrestrial node and one of the first terrestrial node and the second terrestrial node are configured to connect to client devices;
storing, in memory by the one or more processors, a mapping of the first unique node identifier associated with the cell identifier;
receiving, by the one or more processors, from the first terrestrial node an indicator that content of the mapping is subject to change, wherein the indicator is a flag associated with the first unique node identifier or the cell identifier;
based on the received indicator, the one or more processors updating the content of the mapping stored in the memory with the second unique node identifier of the second terrestrial node; and
the non-terrestrial node handing over communication with the first terrestrial node to the second terrestrial node based on the updating the content of the mapping.
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