Internet in Space

The Interplanetary Internet is now being tested in space, using the Bundle Protocol developed by the Delay-Tolerant Networking Research Group. There's a conference paper with details on the testing . They were the first to test IPv6 in space.

The first use of the ‘bundle’ protocol in space has been demonstrated with the UK-DMC satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). Sensor data was successfully delivered from the satellite using this disruption- and delay-tolerant networking protocol designed for the Interplanetary Internet.

Spacecraft and probes operating beyond Earth orbit have intermittent communication contact limited by orbital dynamics. These space communication links create long communication outages. Delay-Tolerant Networking techniques address these issues for systems that lack continuous network connectivity. The ‘bundle’ protocol has been developed to support continuous communications across disrupted links.

The UK-DMC satellite has delivered delay-tolerant networking 'bundles' carrying remote-sensing image data to NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, via SSTL's Guildford, England, Mission Control Centre. The first complete image, of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, was downloaded in fragments across two separate satellite passes to a ‘bundle agent’ in SSTL's ground station. The fragments were sent across the Internet to NASA Glenn’s agent, and reassembled into the image file.

Proactive bundle fragmentation protects against the disruption and link outage that occurs between the two separate satellite passes over the ground station. SSTL's high-performance Saratoga protocol enabled the bundles to be transferred quickly and effectively to the ground.

The UK-DMC satellite is a member of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), used for observing the Earth for major disasters and commercial land monitoring. Currently there are four DMC satellites in daily use in orbit that rely on standard Internet Protocol (IP) networking to send mission-critical imagery to ground stations and to interact with terrestrial networks. The DMC effectively extends the Internet to orbit, and its farsighted adoption of IP has made it possible to take the backbone of the Internet even further into space. Networking technologies new to the space environment, such as the bundle protocol and the Cisco Systems Internet router onboard the UK-DMC satellite, can be experimented with and evaluated for further use.