This work presents a novel channel assignment scheme for low earth-orbit (LEO) satellite-based mobile communication systems, in which any newly generated call will first be assigned an optimum channel and will no longer be reassigned even when it crosses the boundary of the cell. Thus, the compact reuse distance can be maintained and no handoff failure will occur owing to channel unavailability. Furthermore, a high quality service which guarantees successful handoff processes can be provided. The performance of the proposed strategy is analyzed and compared with the performances of the fixed channel assignment (FCA) scheme and dynamic channel assignment schemes.