Interplanetary Network (IPN) Tested

CETS writes "Slim on detail but...USA Today reports of the first test of an Interplanetary Network. 'In a sign of cosmic communications to come, last week mission controllers sent signals to a Mars-orbiting European spacecraft, which relayed the instructions to NASA's Spirit rover on the surface, and a signal was returned to Earth back along the same path.'" NASA also has a press release.

Comments

Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way now

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to be the first to finger Uranus?

Go ahead - mod this troll... :-)

lag

[da2]

yeah but i wouldnt want to play quake/unreal tournement etc over the link

Re:lag

[jo_ham]

Oh, I don't know.

You could go up against godlike railers without dying - assuming you were on the server end of the link.

Plus, you could play Quake III on an 8086 system - the connection would just about keep pace with the slideshow frame rate. you'd just have to be patient!

Re:lag

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a misconception. They'd only need to drop in a couple subspace transponders which send signals faster than light thus enabling delay free conversations across the *galaxy* and low latency for your FPSs.

Re:lag

[FrancisR]

But at least you'll have an excuse to blame lag everytime you die.

Re:lag

[WeblionX]

That's where faster than light communications come in. Apparently some people have figured out just how to do that, though I wouldn't trust one of those RPers to know how something actually works.

Re:lag

[madpierre]

Do Martians have PeN-1-5's ? Do they need them enlarging?

I can't wait for my first interplanetary spam :)

They could run into bandwidth problems if things go wrong.
When the Galileo probes' hi gain antenna failed to deploy
they could only manage 10 bits/sec. I for one won't wait a
week for one of my pr0n images to download.

Re:lag

[madpierre]

Or was that the Magellan probe with the dodgy antenna. Anyhow it was a low datarate.

Re:lag

[jostallin]

This experiment brought to you by Real Software and requires Real One Super Pass .

Isn't that a bit early?

[locknloll]

I mean, good intentions, and kudos to NASA to get that infrastructure up and running, but it will probably take some more years before this really starts to make sense.

I guess it won't be used for routing traffic to gameservers...

Re:Isn't that a bit early?

[Anonymous Coward]

By dong this they have already been able to increase the bandwidth to the rovers by x5.

RTFA

Re:Isn't that a bit early?

[Anonymous Coward]

The earlier you start, the earlier it will become established reality. Why start later if you can now?

Re:Isn't that a bit early?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, part of this idea was to place a small number of satellites around planets esp. mars and let them handle communications, CPU processing, GPS, etc. W's group has killed the system that was to be sent to Mars to do this, but the technology is still doable so that NASA can help others and visa-versa. If all the others use it, it will allow for more info to be received from other planets and possibly save a mission or 2.

Re:Isn't that a bit early?

[alfredw]

Well, it's not like they're spending a huge chunk of change to make this happen... All of NASA's most recent Mars orbiters have been fitted with short-range antenna pointing toward the surface. Once the spacecraft have completed their primary missions, they're already out at Mars and in good working order. Might as well use them to squeeze out that extra bandwidth and take advantage of the better transmission windows from orbit.

Smart move on NASA's part.

Re:Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way no

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that come before or after pinging the Mons Venus?

Try to catch me now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what is stopping us from using this as a proxy server? Could you just imagine the guy looking at where the signal is coming from? Hehe...

Re:Try to catch me now...

[Anonymous Coward]

The ping is a bit of a problem though...

Re:Try to catch me now...

[WeblionX]

Unfortunately the data would have to be confined to an orbital. I'm guessing they group first two into the S orbital.

Slashdotting Mars?

[Big Nothing]

I'm looking forward to the day we can slashdot a website on another planet.

Re:Slashdotting Mars?

[Jameth]

I'm looking forward to the day we can slashdot the entire other planet.

Re:Slashdotting Mars?

[Tango42]

It will be the same day. There will most likely be a single first offworld website, so you slashdot that, you've slashdotted the whole planet.

Re:Slashdotting Mars?

[DragoonAK]

A single offworld website? Naah. Single offworld ISP, perhaps.

Re:Slashdotting Mars?

[Tango42]

That ISP will probably bring one website online first, so if you slashdot it before it can bring any more online, you will have slashdotted the whole planet.

With number of planets and stars out there...

[SharpFang]

they just MUST use IPv6

Re:With number of planets and stars out there...

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't enough IPv6 addresses for them all

Re:With number of planets and stars out there...

[Anonymous Coward]

More like IPv1024

Re:With number of planets and stars out there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until then, we will have other weaknesses of IPv6 discovered and it will need to be replaced anyway.

What about subspace?

[zonix]

Wouldn't it be much faster to use a subspace frequency?

z

Re:What about subspace?

[Scoria]

No, Wesley. Now rub my bald head.

Re:What about subspace?

[jez9999]

That's not Wesley. This is Wesley.

more network acronyms?

[berkut1337]

let's see, we already have: PAN: Personal Area Network LAN: Local Area Network SAN: Storage Area Network WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network WAN: Wide Area Network MAN: Metro-something Area Network and now: IPN: Interplanetary Network can anyone add any more?

Re:more network acronyms?

[locknloll]

VPN = Virtual Private Network

Re:more network acronyms?

[Cap'nCrunk]

UPN: Unbearable Programming Network

Re:more network acronyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

YNFN: You're not funny network (aka Slashdot)

Re:more network acronyms?

[foobsr]

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network
PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network

CC.

Re:more network acronyms?

[FrostedWheat]

ISN: Inter-Stellar Network

For all the latest fair and balanced news from the Bu.. Clarke government.

Re:more network acronyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok.. I'll byte.. ISN = Interstellar Network????

Re:more network acronyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Are you really all that stuipid? Everyone forgets to mention DSN: Deep Space Network?
Google around a bit for it. It's a NASA project consisting of multiple ground based satellite dishes and other stuff.

oops

[berkut1337]

let's see, we already have:

PAN: Personal Area Network
LAN: Local Area Network
SAN: Storage Area Network
WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network
WAN: Wide Area Network
MAN: Metro-something Area Network
and now:
IPN: Interplanetary Network

can anyone add any more?

Re:oops

[Anonymous Coward]

WOMAN - completely undecipherable network.

Now I just hope that I remember to post this as AC ...

Re:oops

[Anonymous Coward]

CAN: Crap Area Network - usually found in toilets, never works.
STAN: Starbucks Area Network.
NAN: Not A(nother) Network?

I think MAN was Metropolitan Area Network, I guess it's only a matter of time until we see SUAN - Sub-Urban Area Network. Stepping up from PAN's, as homes become more wired. FAN's (Family Area Network) will become the norm.

Re:oops

[davesag]

UN - Universal Network?,, doh I think that may be taken...

Re:oops

[Anonymous Coward]

VLAN: virtual lan

Hmmm...

[Faust7]

How about we get our intraplanetary network tip-top first?

(j/k. Go NASA!)

Re:Latency!

[FannyMinstrel]

Oh, what the fuck!
I said Text, you stupid bastard!
Here it is as it was meant to be.

ping marsrover.dsn.gov

ping reply from marsrover.dns.gov 159649 ttl=320000 size=64

ping reply from marsrover.dns.gov 134572 ttl=320000 size=64

ping reply from marsrover.dns.gov 152142 ttl=320000 size=64

ping reply from marsrover.dns.gov 168453 ttl=320000 size=64

Sent: 10 Recieved: 4 Packet Loss : 60% Min/Avrg/Max : 134572, 153704, 168453

(Stupid Lameness Filter! Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters. Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.)

NASA Contumues to ...

[Zordas]

get people excited about space exploration. I for one am overwellmed by the string of success. Heck .. I even have NASA TV constantly running on my computer just so I don't miss a press release and to lean more about the rovers. Previously we were limited to bot's being in a "Direct line of sight" with Earth to transmit data. Now with the IPN we can get data faster and more often. KUDO's to NASA and the ESA for great job !

The name is boring, I'd prefer

[theefer]

inter(pla)net.

Re:The name is boring, I'd prefer

[kalamazoo904]

>inter(pla)net

I believe the abbreviation that they use is InterPlaNet... I've seen it on some of the IPN graphics. So you're right, they do use that abbrev.

I'm kind of surprised...

[TWX]

...that they haven't implemented some form of relay satellite over Mars already. I'd think that one satellite in space would remain viable longer than a ground craft, and since it's in space it wouldn't have the dust-on-the-solar-panels problem, the atmospheric barrier problem, or the temperature variance problem. The ground craft wouldn't need to be built to transmit to Earth, just to an orbiting Mars satellite, which would handle the rest, so the landing craft could have engineering to make it more suited to its task rather than concentrate on radioing home.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[Skyshadow]

that they haven't implemented some form of relay satellite over Mars already.

Well, they *are* using existing orbiters to communicate with the current generation of orbiters. You know, just like the headline there says.

I suspect that before any serious Mars exploration ramps up, a set of satellites in martian geosync would be a good idea. Not only would that facilitate communiation with anything actually on the planet, but it could also provide for a global positioning system.

The real issue up to this point is that we just haven't needed that sort of thing yet. If/when we send people (especially if we follow Zubrin's advice and send them for 500+ day stays, or my advice and just build a colony and get on with it), that will change. If nothing else, just increasing the amount of bits you can push by sending a constant stream of lower-power 1's and 0's to a satellite instead of screaming data at the DSN here on earth a few hours a day would probably be a big benefit to future missions.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[I don't want to spen]

Geostationary orbit satellites only last about 10-15 years before the satellites run out of fuel. I don't know if a Martian equivalent would need more or less fuel due to the lower gravity. The current orbiters can also do useful planetary observation as well as acting as a communication relay, precisely because they do orbit over the planet's surface and can see the whole of it from close range. I doubt that 3 aerostationary, or whatever the correct Martian term is, satellites would adequately perform observations for their much higher orbit as well as providing blanket comms coverage for the planet. Plus power considerations etc. I'm sure it will happen, but not for a good while yet.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[twistedcubic]

I talked with some of the engineers, and it seems they were just waiting for iptables to mature before they did testing.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[Helvick]

Simple - the primary mission objectives for Orbiters is remote imaging and a low altitude polar orbit is ideal for that because it gives almost total planetary coverage. It means that communications windows with landers are very short (8-12 minutes a day for Odyssey, MGS and Mars Express) but they can cover landers anywhere on the planet at high bandwidth for those communication windows.

This will be the case for the next Orbiter (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 2005) and any others prior to the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter which has a primary objetive of being a proper telecoms relay. MTO will provide at least 10x the current bandwidth, communication windows up to 8 hours in duration and will use optical as well as S-Band\X-Band radio links.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that was suppose to happen. the current admin was trying to kill it. Now, that they are supposedly going after the moon and mars, who knows? Perhaps, W's people will quit trying to kill good stuff.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[thebigmacd]

Just a though, but perhaps with the lower gravity ion engines could be used to stay in the proper orbit. That would sure increase lifetime.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[v1]

Most satellites still have to deal with temperature variation as they pass in and out of shadow. Fuel is an issue too, they usually have to burn fuel to keep the orbit, due to the craft continuously colliding with dust particles and solar wind, slowing it down. A lagrange point (discussed about 3 weeks ago here on /.) would be a better alternative because if they picked an L4 or L5 (iirc) no orbit-maintaining fuel would be required. Also keep in mind... the more satellites you relay through, the greater the odds that one or more sats are being blocked by the body they orbit or are otherwise in a "bad spot".

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[RayBender]

Geostationary orbit satellites only last about 10-15 years before the satellites run out of fuel. I don't know if a Martian equivalent would need more or less fuel due to the lower gravity.

Likely somewhat less. Geostationary comsats spend much of their fuel counteracting the effects of the Moon, which tends to pull them out of place. There is no moon around Mars that's large enough to cause problems. On the other hand, Mars os far enough away that it take s bunch of fuel just to get there.

By the way, the GPS network does NOT use geostationary staellites - they are in "half-Geo" orbits; the problem with getting the equivalent of a GPS network around Mars is that you'd need ~24 satellites. The GPS net is a big constellation.

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[Rasta Prefect]

Geostationary orbit satellites only last about 10-15 years before the satellites run out of fuel. I don't know if a Martian equivalent would need more or less fuel due to the lower gravity.

Less I'd imagine, but not directly due to the lower gravity - it's drag that causes them to use fuel, and since Mars has less atmosphere than earth, I would imagine there would be less drag at geostationary heights. (Although geostationary orbit on mars would be closer to the surface).

Re:I'm kind of surprised...

[I don't want to spen]

Not sure about this - you do know geostationary orbits are at around 35000 kms don't you? I know that the shuttle/ space station experience atmospheric drag, but they're only a few hundreds of kms up (see here and scroll down for a graph)

a thought...

[odano]

What I want to know is when I am going to get free WiFi on mars. That $10/day stuff is killing me.

See naked little green women at SpiritRover.com

[BenJeremy]

...Yeah, I told my wife I meant to type SpiritRover.org - Doh!

Re:See naked little green women at SpiritRover.com

[WeblionX]

I think you're looking for the .gov domain.

Re:See naked little green women at SpiritRover.com

[BenJeremy]

That might be why she didn't believe me.

USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[John Seminal]

Radio signals take several minutes, travelling at the speed of light, to traverse the void between the two planets

Hmmm. Funny, NASA does not say anything about that.

Anyways, I guess it is good to have an article which might stirr up support in the community as a whole.

So, what is next? Will every planet in the solar system have a series of satelites that can form a solar system wide network? If this experiment of launching rovers is a success on mars, as it looks to be, then I can see a day when we have rovers on all the planets, perhaps even a manned station on different planets.

Too bad Gene Roddenberry is not alive to see the begenning...

Re:USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[AeroIllini]

USA Today, is right, though. The lag time between Earth and Mars is anywhere between 3 and 22 minutes when Earth and Mars are clostest and farthest away from each other in their orbits.

And I think NASA has had plans to incorporate signal relay satellites for some time. Of course, NASA plans to build many more probes/satellites than actually get launched, so we're just now seeing satellites with relay capabilities. There were plans as far back as 1997 to launch a series of satellites whose only purpose was to relay signals from other spacecraft. Interplanetary routers, if you will. However, due to budget cuts, the capability was instead built into satellites with otherwise scientific payloads.

Re:USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[foobsr]

Too bad Gene Roddenberry is not alive to see the beginning...

Hmm, I always thought it begun on my 17th birthday :)

>>>>> The Apollo 8 Christmas Eve Broadcast

CC.

Re:USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[Paradise Pete]

guess it is good to have an article which might stirr up support in the community

As long as it doesn't sadd le us with too much baggage.

Re:USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

USA Today, is right, though. The lag time between Earth and Mars is anywhere between 3 and 22 minutes when Earth and Mars are clostest and farthest away from each other in their orbits.

Heh.. it would be just like chatting via IRC... right down to the netsplits :)

Re:USATODAY.com for all your science needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. "a Mars-orbiting European spacecraft" I wonder which can that be ... like ... there are plenty of 'em all over the place.

Not really

[mlyle]

The bulk of data coming back from the Mars Exploration Rovers comes back through relay sessions through the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Global Surveyor satellites. The orbiters are simply much closer to the rovers than Earth is, the path loss is less, and so the data rates are much higher... and the satellites have direct visibility of earth for much longer and much higher EIRPs to talk to earth with.

A couple of weeks ago they tried the first "interplanetary network" where the sessions were up "live", rather than store and forward.

The really big advantage of this is they'll be able to command the rovers in near-realtime and get answers back right away for much more of the day than direct to earth communications is possible. And with 3 communications satellites above Mars, they are likely to have quite a few communications windows. Expect them to be fairly risk adverse, though, and for it to be several weeks before this is included in their operations.

Re:Not really

[NSash]

The really big advantage of this is they'll be able to command the rovers in near-realtime

...if you consider 8 minutes of lag to be "near realtime." (Mars is 8 light-minutes away from Earth, so until we develop a Tachyon-based communications system, that's as good as it's going to get.)

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

"The really big advantage of this is they'll be able to command the rovers in near-realtime"

Because of the lag. By the time you see the canyon ahead, the rover is already lying burning on the canyon bead.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

The window of opportunity for communication isn't that much better. In fact, it's worse if you use the network. The MGS, Mars Express, etc are in low Mars orbit (LMO?), so they can't see Earth for much longer than the rovers themselves. Maybe an extra 20 minutes when the rovers are just out of sight of Earth (just before Earthrise and after Earthrise).

And on top of that, the orbiters have to have LOS to the landers. They only have LOS for (wag) about 30 minutes. And that's not taking into account the fact that the ground track of the oribiters change, so they only see the landers a few orbits a day.

Nah, the network isn't good for much except a few high-rate data transfers. Everything else is still a matter of the traditional point-to-point lander-Earth communications. Now if we put some "ares-centric" comm relay satellites in orbit, we'd be looking good!

Where's the redundant link!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, two space agency and hundred of million of dollars and they don't have a redundant link? What happens when some backhoe disrupts the signal? Stupid rocket scientists...

see!

[Anonymous Coward]

i knew it all along!
there's not cheap way to do something
for the first time.

so they finally! got the communication
"problem" solved. see, good idea to
have a com. satellit in orbit (even if it
doesn't do much more then relaying.

now maybe they'll also add some good eyes
to mars orbit.

at this pace, me thinks they'll acctually get
some humans on mars.
there's a whole lot of sh#tload of stuff they'll
have to send into orbit to support a permanent
human presence on mars. not everything can
be a probe or an instrument or a robot.
some stuff just has to have one specific function.

good (perfect?) work so far. this year really is
starting very promising :)

IPN not like TCP/IP

[Anonymous Coward]

The IPN and the Internet are two different things.

The IPN does not use TCP or another transmission control protocol because it is simply not possible to acknowledge data/rerequest data if the latency is that big (minutes to days in the solar system).

Re:IPN not like TCP/IP

[r_cerq]

You don't use a cable modem, do you? ;)

Re:IPN not like TCP/IP

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite the contrary, the IPN and our terrestrial Internet are rather closely related. Don't think a lot of the lessons of a best-attempt network have been ignored.

http://www.ipnsig.org/

I recommend reading there about the entire suite of protocols, *all* based on terrestial Internet equivalents.

Re:IPN not like TCP/IP

[WeblionX]

So it uses UDP? Hey, the perfect gaming network!

(Yes, I know about lag.)

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Radio signals take several minutes, travelling at the speed of light, to traverse the void between the two planets
> Hmmm. Funny, NASA does not say anything about that.

That's because it's obvious to anyone with a 3rd grade education. NASA has a lot of interesting stuff to report and thankfully they're not dumbing down their releases even further.

> Too bad Gene Roddenberry is not alive to see the begenning...

Actually, Pioneer and Voyager were the beginning, even if they didn't use relay satellites.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

parent is not insightful, either he didn't even read the summary, or he's trolling.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

parent is not insightful, either he didn't even read the summary, or he's trolling.

dumbfuck

[Anonymous Coward]

lightyear = distance

WOOT!

[IdJit]

Hellabad lag, but what a LAN party!

Intergalactic PlanetarREEE!

cool ...

[torpor]

... wake me up when they start putting zerconf in the rovers ...

Things we can look forward to

[cyranoVR]

Martian Email Scam ("my recently deposed president Marvin...")

Movie hax0rz routing their connection "through Mars" to avoid detection

RIAA supoenas Spirit rover

Re:Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way no

[calags]

Only after the Moon is fully explored!

Communications Relays

[Detritus]

The problem is that it is much easier to build a satellite tracking system on the Earth's surface. The antennas can be large, the environment is benign, the hardware is cheaper and can be tweaked, repaired and upgraded. Plus there is relatively unlimited power and space, and there are human beings to make decisions. You need a compelling reason to try to do that in space. On the Earth, if an antenna mechanism gets stuck, you can send out Joe to whack it with a hammer. In space, you lose the whole antenna, permanently.

NASA spent billions of dollars on the development and deployment of the Tracking Data Relay System (TDRS), which can track spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. Even there they had to cheat a bit, by doing the beam-forming for the phased array multiple access antenna on the ground instead of on the TDRS spacecraft.

Re:Communications Relays

[wfberg]

Even there they had to cheat a bit, by doing the beam-forming for the phased array multiple access antenna on the ground instead of on the TDRS spacecraft.

I'll admit my ignorance, to me this sounds a bit like "they had to split the dylithium crystal array into a 4 dimensional plexus to feed the antimatter containment tubes"..

Perhaps you could elaborate a bit foor poor souls like me?

Re:Communications Relays

[Detritus]

Phased array antenna systems are used for applications like air defense radar, where you need to track multiple inbound targets, and satellite communications where the satellite transmits to multiple stations on the ground. The difference between a phased array and a parabolic dish is that the parabolic dish is mechanically aimed and can only point at one target at a time, while a phased array is electronically steered and can simultaneously track multiple targets.

A phased array is composed of a large number of simple antennas in a regular pattern. Each of the simple antennas is connected to a phase controlling element, usually controlled by a computer. By adjusting the phase of each simple antenna, the array's radiation pattern can be manipulated to form one or more directional beams, without having to move any mechanical parts.

For NASA's application on TDRS, it allows them to simultaneously track and communicate with multiple satellites in low-Earth orbit, with a single electronically steered antenna system.

The trick NASA pulled with the phased array antenna on TDRS was to take the phase controllers off the spacecraft and put them at the TDRS ground station. The TDRS spacecraft takes the output of all the simple antenna elements and retransmits each one to the ground station. The ground station has a magic phasing/combiner box that takes the outputs of all the simple antennas and adjusts the phase of each signal and combines them under computer control. This splits the phased array into two parts, with part in space (simple antenna array) and part on the ground (phasing/combiner/control computer). This removes a big chunk of hardware and complexity from the spacecraft and relocates it to the ground station.

Looking at the TDRS web page, the latest series of TDRS spacecraft (TDRS-H, I, J) have the beam-forming hardware on board the spacecraft, instead of doing it on the ground.

Re:Communications Relays

[AeroIllini]

I agree that there are problems with such a system. Keeping components on Earth is always much easier than doing it in space, especially if they are sensitive electronics.

However NASA does have two compelling reasons: the rotation of the Earth and the rotation of Mars.

Without satellite relays, if the probes are on the opposite side of Mars, they have to wait several hours before the Earth is in view again to transmit or receive data. On the same token, in order for NASA to transmit or receive that data, they have to use an antenna which is on the Mars side of the Earth: because the rotations are not the same, the region of Earth suitable for Mars transmission will process around the planet slowly (Mars' day is only about 35 minutes longer than Earth's). So right now, NASA is required to lease space on antennas all over the world and retransmit through them.

It would probably be much easier for them to have a full satellite network in place for all their Earth-Mars transmissions. A couple of satellites in Earth geosync and several in Martian geosync would really simplify data transmission. Set up a few standardized, open protocols for other space agencies to use, and presto! ... MarsNet.

Ping thread

[eap]

Please place all ping mars with time=(large number) jokes under this thread.

Thank you

Re:Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way no

[twoslice]

Who's going to be the first to finger Uranus?

The first? well that would be... the goatse man! (RIP)

Still notorious even after being kicked out of the club....

Re:Latency!

[ultranova]

Why do you need such huge TTL ? It only gets decreased once per link, whether it takes milliseconds or hours to pass that link...

Interplanetary Internet Spam

[Shafe]

"The IPN would behave more like e-mail. Data could be stored at any of various hubs around the solar system and transmitted to their destination via the best path at the moment."

I wonder what the first IPN spam message will be...

Re:Latency!

[FannyMinstrel]

So that you still get the pings after the Martians intercept the data stream, duh. :)

KA9Q

[bigattichouse]

Just a dressed up store-and-forward packet radio, right? KA9Q was written well over 10 years ago, and can route IPv4 traffic over such a connection.

Argh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it, eventually we'll have a "Universal Planetary Network," or UPN for short.

Sounds Intriguing

[Beavis!]

Considering that it's "just a start", I wonder how long it will take to actually establish a real network that is interplanetary? Obviously there is little need for one at the moment, but once there are manned bases on Mars, this kind of network would be essential.

The beauty of IP over ethernet is that it's not just dedicated to one single function. It can be used for a variety of applications and is really only limited by bandwidth and latency. Overcoming the latency would be a really huge issue between planets. But I think it may be possible to find a faster than light (or more clearly, not limited by the speed of light) method to send the data over. Now the real question? Will it use IP V6? ;)

Re:Sounds Intriguing

[Anonymous Coward]

faster than light (or more clearly, not limited by the speed of light)

wow wow wow, where've you been ? unless relativity is proved wrong, nothing can travel faster than light, period. Quantum information is far from a sure thing.

Where's the traceroute?

[Bander]

Forget all those lame ping jokes, I want to see the traceroute.

-- Bander

First Contact by email?

[Swe3tDave]

Spam from E.T.? DOH

Re:First Contact by email?

[Newspimp]

E.T. no longer phones home. He uses ICQ.

It's not long until...

[halivar]

It's not long until some hacker starts using Spirit as a porn server. After all, wherever there is internet, there is porn.

Only question now is, will it be imported, or native?

Re:It's not long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't it already? the mission has already been delayed some days because of "excessive file usage"... I wonder...

Still, what laws are ruling on martian soil? if there is some illegal stuff in that Spirit RAM... would RIAA be able to shut it down?

In the future we will have ...

[Sindri]

IGN: Intergalactic Network

IDN: Interdimensional Network

SSN: Subspace Network (where Picard browses for pr0n)

IBN: Interbrain Network (ala Borg)
... etc. ...

not impressed yet....

[LuxFX]

...but I'll be impressed when they make a working ansible.

Re:not impressed yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to wait a thousand years or so... After all the theory of simultaneity on which Ansible is founded, will be invented by a geek from a moon in the Tau Ceti system, only after he gets his hands on an ancient work by a Terran called Ainsetain. (The Dispossessed, page 232.)

Re:Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way no

[gertsenl]

What I want to know is, did they store a hard copy of their public key fingerprint on the spacecraft and rover?

You know, to prevent a Little Green Man-in-the-Middle Attack?

Not even that good.

[Civil_Disobedient]

The lag time between Earth and Mars is anywhere between 3 and 22 minutes when Earth and Mars are clostest and farthest away from each other in their orbits

And just to make matters worse, you've got to deal with some serious high-gain amplification to "dial them up". Beaming cable over a satellite's easy -- sending it millions of miles away means a lot more power (a scarce commodity on a satellite to begin with) or a much more sensitive antenna on the recieving end. I don't know what the current data transmission rates with the things we sent to Mars, but for reference, the Magellan probe back in the 90's had a transmission rate of 115 - 268.9 kilobits/sec.

It is really amazing to consider that we now have a "spy" satellite orbitting Mars relaying images of the surface back to us on Earth, and that it's sensors are good enough to show us photos of the landing of the rover on the surface. Just incredible. But this technology is still in its infancy -- we've still got decades before we land a man on the planet. This is an amazing page about the Soviet exploration of Venus that may also be of interest.

Re:Not even that good.

[SmackCrackandPot]

It is really amazing to consider that we now have a "spy" satellite orbitting Mars relaying images of the surface back to us on Earth, and that it's sensors are good enough to show us photos of the landing of the rover on the surface. Just incredible.

I wonder how long it will be before Beagle is found this way...

Re:Not even that good.

[dvd_tude]

They do have one thing that helps (as it turns out, quite a bit): no in-band background noise to interfere with the communication.

Anyway, yes their data rates are lower than diect broadcast TV satellite. It's all about the relative S/N owing to inverse square law and the greater distance to the deep space vehicle. The rover and orbiter link rates are on par with Magellan's - 128~256 kb/s, compared with about 30mb/s for a DTV satellite transponder channel.

Read this chapter in JPL's Space Flight Primer for more information about how their space vehicle comms work. A tidbit I found in there: they use coherent (phase-locked) transmission and Doppler to very accurately measure the remote vehicle's position. That's a neat hack.

Both things are amazing when you look at them, for different reasons. Deep space communication is amazing because it's possible. Direct broadcast satellite is amazing because it's so cheap!

A nitpick: the 'milestone' stated in the article, which was apparently overlooked by many of the posters here is the fact that, for the first time, a non-NASA spacecraft (in this case the ESA's Mars Express Orbiter) got into the act as a data relay for the rovers. This is more a statement about cooperation than it is about outright technical achievement. It is a political milestone, much the same as our (America's) cooperation with Russia in the ISS and in developing new rocket booster technology. Yet while it is political, it is a good thing in that it's another step toward recognizing that for space exploration to be fully realized it needs to be global endeavor, not a national one.

This is very much at odds with Bush's election-year 'man to the moon' pipe dream that serves no real scientific end and is more about beating the collective American wiener on the table with China.

Re:Not even that good.

[Civil_Disobedient]

the 'milestone' stated in the article, which was apparently overlooked by many of the posters here is the fact that, for the first time, a non-NASA spacecraft (in this case the ESA's Mars Express Orbiter) got into the act as a data relay for the rovers

It's also neat that some of these satellites are doing double-duty -- that is, they have certain bandwidth limitations that act as a bottleneck to all the data they could be sending from their normal scientific operation modes. The Mars Express orbiter had to juggle data from both its scientific instruments and all the recon for the rovers. In effect, distributing bandwidth like an ISP.

Yet while it is political, it is a good thing in that it's another step toward recognizing that for space exploration to be fully realized it needs to be global endeavor, not a national one.

Definately. I often wonder how much more advanced our space program would be (our=mankind's) if the Russians and Americans had been working cooperatively in the 60's instead of reinventing each other's work. I realize that the anatagonism of the cold war certainly helped get a lot of the movement underway, but I can't help but look at some of those older Russian probes and think, "Damn, what a clever bunch of guys they had."

Russia had been working on rockets long before the Germans were buzzing Britain; think of where we'd be now if we'd paired a guy like Goddard with guys like Glushko and Korolev. Sucks that Russian's pre-eminent rocket designers were later arrested and tortured under Stalin's terrors.

---
A small aside (Karma to burn...) why are we wasting our limited resources on sending probes to distant planets? It seems absurd to me, that you would send a probe halfway across the solar system, then wait (and pray) that all the instruments survived the trip, then wait for the results to come back as weak sputtering data. Think about it, folks -- How did they do in Star Trek? You assemble one big ship in space , then have it go out and get your research.

Everyone's talking about landing people on Mars, living on Mars... it's insane! The requirements to land on a planet are a lot more restrictive than travelling to a planet. Just concentrate on a ship with enough power (it would probably have to be nuclear, like our nuclear subs are today). Once you're power solution is found, you can build it as big and un-aerodynamic as you want! Need some extra O2, or food? No problem, just tack on another cargo hold.

I realize Ion propulsion isn't very efficient right now, but with enough power you wouldn't have to carry around all that stupid compressed air. Anyway, my point is that we could accomplish so much if we just got some people out there, but we don't have to have people living on other planets for this to happen. Just build a ship, people. You can figure out the other stuff as you go. /rant.

Answered my own question.

[Civil_Disobedient]

From their website...

The data rates from the Mars Surveyor to Earth are 1105, 2856, and 9240 bps and realtime rates are 29260 and 63580 bps.

Re:Answered my own question.

[sfisher71]

News reports earlier this week (02/14/2004) claimed that NASA had just upped the data rate to 256kbps. In light of the discussion here about using the orbiters as routers, that makes perfect sense -- use the rovers' high-gain antennas to shoot bits into orbit at a higher rate, then use the orbiters to send them back to us.

Re:Answered my own question.

[Civil_Disobedient]

I also read somewhere that one of the new systems that is going to be tested is the use of the Ka Band for data transmission instead of what they normally use (X-Band), which I believe increases the amount of data that can be sent an order of magnitude or so. The X-Band tops out at 400 kbps, I believe.

Re:Really bad pun - let's get it out of the way no

[BenV666]

The answer is obviously 'yes'

Re:Latency!

[TheSunborn]

Well ttl is decreased once per second, and at least once per link. Because no "normal" link does have a latency of > 1 second they just decrease it with 1.

Mars out of touch

[dellis78741]

When will Mars pass behind the sun and we lose all communication with it for a few weeks? Could happen while the Rovers are still functional...

Reminds me of...

[Beolach]

A comment in the Linux kernel:

/*
* [...] Note that 120 sec is
* defined in the protocol as the maximum possible RTT. I guess
* we'll have to use something other than TCP to talk to the
* University of Mars.
*
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once
* implemented ftp to mars will work nicely. We will have to fix
* the 120 second clamps though!
*/

--(from /usr/src/linux-2.6.2/net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c, concerning RTT [round trip time])

Submitter misread news article and release

[benh57]

The news article and the press release noted that this was the first INTERNATIONAL interplanetary network, IE, NASA Rover -> ESA Satellite -> NASA ground station. Read it again, guys. That was the whole point, that ESA was involved for the first time.

Orbiting networks via NASA Rover -> NASA Sat -> NASA ground have been done repeatedly since the rovers landed well over a month ago.

one giant hop backwards for the press

[Doc Ruby]

This InterPlanetNet is a giant leap for mankind, compared to the small step for a man on the first "spacewalk". Yet it receives less press coverage than the first American spacewalk (Russian Alexi Leonov was the first "man in space", spacewalking 3 months earlier). This demonstrates the point driven home so well in _The Right Stuff_: the space program is primarily a human adventure, and secondarily a science/engineering program. Our species will be living on the IPN grid for millennia, but it's not photogenic. When we get a "JenniCam in Orbit" reality show, about 5 unlikely ISS roommates, we'll see space colonization become a priority.

I snooped mars IP traffic.......

[Anonymous Coward]

And following a deep analysis of the data in the packets I am able to anounce that there **is** life on mars.

Whatsmore it is in desperate need of Viagra, likes young teens and thier horses, and interest rates up there are the lowwest ever.

No sign of intelligence however.

Re:Latency!

[smeenz]

> Well ttl is decreased once per second

Could you provide some evidence to back that statement ?

ok

[emmons]

>ping spirit.mars.ipn.nasa.gov

Pinging spirit.mars.ipn.nasa.gov [63.210.104.88] with 32 bytes of data:

1 0 0 0 66.46.176.3 -
2 0 0 0 216.191.97.41 pos5-3.core1-mtl.bb.allstream.net
3 16 16 0 216.191.65.173 pos2-1.core2-tor.bb.allstream.net
4 16 0 15 216.191.65.243 srp2-0.gwy1-tor.bb.allstream.net
5 16 15 32 12.125.142.5 -
6 16 15 32 12.123.5.218 gbr5-p80.cgcil.ip.att.net
7 157 234 219 12.123.6.33 ggr2-p300.cgcil.ip.att.net
8 32 15 16 209.0.227.77 so-1-1-0.edge1.chicago1.level3.net
9 32 15 16 209.244.8.13 so-2-1-0.bbr2.chicago1.level3.net
10 16 31 16 4.68.112.210 so-5-0.ipcolo2.chicago1.level3.net
11 16 31 16 166.90.208.122 unknown.level3.net
* * * * 63.210.101.28 -

Damn firewall.

8 minutes

[Blondie-Wan]

Mars is 8 light-minutes away from Earth

Mars isn't any fixed number of light-minutes from Earth, since their orbits aren't in lockstep. When they're farthest apart, they're, what, about five times as far apart as when they're closest?

You must be thinking of Earth's distance from the Sun...

Faster than light antenna

[sofakingon]

I don't know why NASA just doesn't use this

"Hyper-Light-Speed Antenna A method to transmit and receive electromagnetic waves which comprises generating opposing magnetic fields having a plane of maximum force running perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the magnetic field; generating a heat source along an axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the magnetic field; generating an accelerator parallel to and in close proximity to the heat source, thereby creating an input and output port; and generating a communications signal into the input and output port, thereby sending the signal at a speed faster than light."

Re:Latency!

[TheSunborn]

Here is a quote from INTERNET PROTOCOL DARPA INTERNET PROGRAM PROTOCOL SPECIFICATION http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc0791. html

The fragment offset is measured in units of 8 octets (64 bits). The first fragment has offset zero. Time to Live: 8 bits This field indicates the maximum time the datagram is allowed to remain in the internet system. If this field contains the value zero, then the datagram must be destroyed. This field is modified in internet header processing. The time is measured in units of seconds, but since every module that processes a datagram must decrease the TTL by at least one even if it process the datagram in less than a second, the TTL must be thought of only as an upper bound on the time a datagram may exist. The intention is to cause undeliverable datagrams to be discarded, and to bound the maximum datagram lifetime.

Who needs a life when one can remember ip wierd details in the ip specifications :}

Re:Latency!

[smeenz]

every module that processes a datagram must decrease the TTL by at least one

Hmm.. that's interesting... the "by at least one" part. I've never met a device that will decrease it by any value other than exactly one.