Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Web Enabled Spacecraft

Posted by michael on from the fluffy-bunny-to-the-rescue dept.

gilgsn writes "Yahoo has an article from space.com about a satellite which will be operated by FTP over TCP/IP on the Internet! The CHIP (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer) spacecraft will examine the stuff between stars, the so-called void of space that is actually rich with hot gas. The choice of protocol was dictated by economics. I wonder what OS it will run and if communications will be encrypted?"

1 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. FTP!? by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, I've never heard of FTP being used as a control protocol. Sure, HTTP might have been a bit much (although I doubt it. people have run webservers computers the size of matchheads. Even HTTP over a serial connection on an apple2). Why not use straight telnet with no options?

    And I wonder how this control works, do you CD into a spesifc cordinate of space to examine? Can you DIR the stars it can see to find which ones to look more closely at, and then GET the acual data?

    Hrm, actualy that would be kind of cool.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.