Slashdot Mirror
The Interplanetary Internet
Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from SPACE.com about the Interplanetary Internet (IPN) is not science fiction. It is becoming a reality, Rich Gray reports. "The IPN would form a backbone connecting a series of hubs on or around planets, ships, and at other points in space. These hubs would provide high-capacity, high-availability Internet traffic over distances that could stretch up to hundreds of millions of miles." Gray adds that all the planets and satellites in our solar system have already Internet addresses and that NASA is already communicating with its earth-orbiting missions through its internal Deep Space Network. The rest of us will have to wait until at least 2005 when IPN-equipped satellites are launched. Check this column for more details. You also can read a previous Slashdot column on the same subject.
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"To boldly Slashdot where nobody has Slashdotted before."
While network infrastructure will be working at lower levels, there will of course never be any kind of interactivity - expect new legal fun and games as the need to cache and bulk send stuff to local mirrors collides with steadily more draconian IP laws.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Now once these hubs are set up, Communications would not rely on Line of site; interplanetory travel could "talk" with mission control from anywhere on the journey.
Some Sci-Fi:
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Well, since most geeks don't build spacecrafts, and most space technicians don't design network protocols, we might as well work in parallel and do all at once :).
They'll just have to rely on NAT like the rest of us do.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Introducing... delayed messaging!
I think it's been around for a while. We call them letters.
The communication system is a key driving factor to any spacecraft design. This is especially true for any spacecrafts not orbiting around Earth.
The communications system drives:
- power requirements
- size of solar arrays
- # of batteries
- # of ground stations
- mission operations
- level of autonomy
- antenna pointing accuracy
- quality and quantity of scientific data
and much more...
In short, the comm system is a key factor in mission risk, cost, and spacecraft design. It sounds like IPN is trying to establish a permanent communication network in our solar system by placing communication relay satellites at various locations in the solar system.
If they are successful, then future interplanetary spacecrafts will no longer be required to "phone home" directly (i.e. have line of sight). Instead, those spacecrafts would need to only transmit to the nearest relay satellite. Therefore, interplanetary spacecrafts could be designed with less complexity, cost, and risk while benefitting from constant command and control access, higher data rates, and greater scientific data returns.
In regards to the 3 probes and spacestation issue: if we look farther ahead, we'll see that there are a number of interplanetary probes, vehicles and spacecrafts that will be launched within the next decade. Most notably the New Horizons mission (Pluto), the twin Mars rovers, and the Next Generation Telescope (at Earth-Sun L2 poing?). All 3 of those missions would benifit greatly by having their communications architecture simplified.
What if Mars bans NAT like Michigan did?
do not read this line twice.