Deep Space Internet

BokehBokeh Member Posts: 1,636 ■■■■■■■□□□
NASA successfully tests deep space Internet
With Vint Cerf, NASA develops communication protocol that uses spacecraft as routers
Sharon Gaudin

November 19, 2008 (Computerworld) With the help of Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has successfully tested its own deep space Internet.

Looking for a more efficient and cheaper way to communicate with spacecraft traveling throughout the solar system, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) created a new communications protocol that uses space probes and orbiters as deep space routers.

"This will allow for quicker, more efficient, less costly communications," said Leigh Torgerson, an operations center manager at the JPL. "If you have a rover on Mars and an orbiter circling Mars, you can relay information from Earth through the orbiter and to the rover. [It's] just like [the orbiter] is a router on the Internet."

Torgerson said that Cerf, who co-designed the TCP/IP Internet protocol, is a senior scientist on the team that developed the new protocol. The project has been under way for 10 years, Torgerson added.

Scientists have used the new software protocol, dubbed Disruption-Tolerant Networking, to send dozens of images to and from a NASA spacecraft more than 20 million miles from Earth over the past month.

Protocols basically are a language used to communicate between systems on the Internet. "This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," said Adrian Hooke, team lead and manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards at NASA.

Torgerson noted that the so-called interplanetary Internet has to be resilient enough to withstand disruptions or disconnections common in deep space communications. With the new communications design, each network node is designed to hold onto data packets, instead of discard them, until a destination path can be found.

"The incentive to use Internet-like protocols over space links was to take advantage of automated routing," Torgerson told Computerworld. "With standard space-link communications, the ground sends commands to spacecraft to tell it what time and what data to send. It's very hands-on-intensive. Automated routing ... saves a lot of labor and costs."

Right now, NASA noted that it has 10 network nodes in its Interplanetary Internet.

Torgerson said he foresees it being critical when NASA launches its manned missions to Mars and even when it sends astronauts back to the moon.

Comments

  • KaminskyKaminsky Member Posts: 1,235
    Little spotty hackers are now dreaming of hacking the Mars Rover I bet.
    Kam.
  • LarryDaManLarryDaMan Member Posts: 797
    Bokeh wrote: »
    With the help of Internet pioneer Vint Cerf...

    What?? I thought Al Gore invented the internet. :)
  • tierstentiersten Member Posts: 4,505
    They've used IP in space for many years now. It was limited to test projects before but they've evidently moved onto actual real usage of it. Cisco made/make the special routers used in the comms satellites.
  • WanBoy67WanBoy67 Member Posts: 225
    Knowing the IT industries luck, NASA will release a certification "Routing In Outer Space With Disruption-Tolerant Networking" and a few weeks later there'll be a **** for it. Half of India & China will be RIOSDTN qualified to route American space craft. World War III begins...
    Yes we can, yes we can...
  • BradleyHUBradleyHU Member Posts: 918 ■■■■□□□□□□
    i mean, what you expect....the astronauts wanna see their **** & download some music while in space too...
    Link Me
    Graduate of the REAL HU & #1 HBCU...HAMPTON UNIVERSITY!!! #shoutout to c/o 2004
    WIP: 70-410(TBD) | ITIL v3 Foundation(TBD)
  • SepiraphSepiraph Member Posts: 179 ■■□□□□□□□□
  • msteinhilbermsteinhilber Member Posts: 1,480 ■■■■■■■■□□
    This is going to give a whole new meaning to "black hole router".
  • KasorKasor Member Posts: 933 ■■■■□□□□□□
    You know how much power you need to boost the signal up to the space!!! Without the Electronic company notice...
    Kill All Suffer T "o" ReBorn
  • AhriakinAhriakin Member Posts: 1,799 ■■■■■■■■□□
    I believe they developed SCTP for this, it's already being used experimentally for the design of next gen (LTE) phone networks.
    We responded to the Year 2000 issue with "Y2K" solutions...isn't this the kind of thinking that got us into trouble in the first place?
  • PashPash Member Posts: 1,600 ■■■■■□□□□□
    Are we gonna need a new administritive distance of "light years" soon? :P
    DevOps Engineer and Security Champion. https://blog.pash.by - I am trying to find my writing style, so please bear with me.
  • WanBoy67WanBoy67 Member Posts: 225
    Forests - Security Boundaries

    Domains - Administrative Boundaries

    Space - The Final IT Frontier
    Yes we can, yes we can...
  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Cool, imagine that milage claim for an engineer callout :p
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
  • tierstentiersten Member Posts: 4,505
    Gomjaba wrote: »
    Cool, imagine that milage claim for an engineer callout :p
    Mmm yeah... Sorry mate. I've gotta pop out to the space shuttle to get a spare. Can you let me back in when I ring?
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