US Air Force Building Space Router

Saint Aardvark writes "From the ISTS daily news comes a story on the US Air Force seeking to build a space router. From TFA: "Northrop Grumman and Caspian Networks are collaborating to develop an Internet Protocol router that can withstand the constant barrage of solar radiation in orbit. The space-hardened IP router will be part of the Air Force's Transformational Satellite Communications System, which will provide IP-based communications to warfighters." I wonder what the ping times would be like..."

Comments

Ping Times

[ackthpt]

"I wonder what the ping times would be like..."

They could tell you, but then they'd have to kill you.

News to Look Forward To:

Air Force Get Signal - 'CATS: AYBABTU' Spend $$$,$$$,$$$'s researching origin

TSAT 0wn3d

Alan Ralsky sentenced to Abu Ghraib for routing spam through TSAT

TSAT loses orbit, crushes Tom Cruise on eve of War Of The Worlds opening

Mischevious Glac-Elves use TSAT to spread Irata Worm

Air Force officer notices TSAT looks canoe-shaped before realizing contract made with wrong Grumman

Warfighters welcome their new Space Routing Overlord

Re:Ping Times

[chadjg]

I could actually respect a spammer that had the "guts" to route their spam through a server owned by a group that could unload a platoon of M1A2s on his front lawn and permanently crush everything in sight in about 2 seconds.

Please God... Thou has made me bald and without charm. Pleae give this one thing.

Re:Ping Times

[RealityMogul]

You're pings are not being routed through a satellite.

first post via space router

[Anonymous Coward]

first po
NO CARRIER

Woohoo...

[It doesn't come easy]

Gonna need a hell of a long patch cable...

Ping times.

[grub]

I wonder what the ping times would be like...

(nb: I worked on some satellite internet stuff a few years ago.) If this unit is in geosynchronous orbit (so a fixed dish can always hit it), it's sitting almost 36,000 Km over the equator. Assuming your dish is at the equator a round trip is ~72,000 Km / 300,000 Km/sec (the speed of light) means the signal travels about a quarter second earth->earth not including any processing time at the satellite midway point or either end.

Re:Ping times.

[Brett Buck]

It's surprising how long that ~1/2 a second can be. I've had conversations over a geo comsat, and it's pretty awkward - just long enough to screw up the flow, but not so long that you have to consciously compensate for it.

How to harden a router.

[BeProf]

Wrap it in tinfoil?

Re:How to harden a router.

[3rd_Floo]

I know this was a joke, but just to give some extra insight to some rad hardening perticulars... Tinfoil would not be enough, creating efficient Rad hardened electronics is an interesting problem. Not only do you have to deal with simple EM types of interference, but the possibility of radiation flipping the bit stored in a register. Typically parallel processors that do redundant checks on data, multipath techniques and other sharing and swarm-consensus types of architectures would be employed. This is the preferred method because strapping a big honking metal plate is MUCH more costly, just to negate rad effects. Although they would still have to shield it against small-debris impacts.

About Freaking Time

[Emugamer]

Okay this wasn't exactly the use that I had thought of an IP based communications grid and I for sure am not the most knowlegeable on the subject of radio communication arrays used by NASA et al but isn't it time that we have a formalized "cell" network in space to best aquire signals from microsats and such? reduce the cost of individual launchs by already having everything up there that you need to communicate with and then just move forwards with less communication equipment and more mission core equipment?

can someone who knows more about this tell me why this hasn't been done?!?

A Space Router! Wowzers!

[syntap]

They figured out how to route space! Does this route time too?

My network closet router only routes closets.

ET phone home

[It doesn't come easy]

So, how are they going to keep ET from patching in to the internet for free? Did they think of that? Eh?

What's so special about routers?

[hazee]

Every satelite up there has to withstand "the constant barrage of solar radiation in orbit". If the communications, or video or whatever got scrambled, then they wouldn't be a whole lot of use.

So what's so special about a router?

Re:What's so special about routers?

[TheFlyingGoat]

If you set up a router in geosynchronous orbit around Mars, you wouldn't need line of sight to get the data from a rover back to Earth. You could do this with just a repeater, though.

It gets interesting as we spread out more and more. You can set up a router in geosynchronous orbit around each planet, and data has a much more likely chance of getting back to Earth. You can relay pictures of the stars from Mars to Earth when it's on the other side of the sun.

You can also send satellites out past Pluto, and if you have a router in orbit around Pluto, there's a good chance for it to relay the signal back to Saturn, Neptune, or Uranus. Then those can relay it back closer and so on. It's much better than the laser aligned communications we use now, where the satellite needs a direct line back to Earth.

In space,

[Vengeance]

In space, noone can hear you ping.

universal IP network

[alphakappa]

Maybe this is a sign of things to come. As we send spacecrafts to Mars and other planets (and someday planets beyond our solar system), the InterPlanetary Internet will need such routers. A router satellite followed by routers in space and on other planets would create a nice little backbone to base our communications on. There would be one hell of a delay, but we could send our spacecrafts farther and farther away without losing the ability to communicate.

look out Hubble!

[dubdays]

Maybe when the Hubble gets retired they can use it for one hell of a cantenna...

The secret's out...

[ptomblin]

UFOs are war flyers looking to see if earth has an open node yet.

NASA is already doing this with CISCO

[alphakappa]

From an April 2004 news report. There is an interesting quote there:

"..isco does not expect to develop a business selling space hardware, and estimated that the market for satellite-based Internet routers may be only 15 or 20 units over the next decade. Instead, Cisco's plans are focused on the ground-systems business that could be created if satellites are able to communicate using Internet protocols. With Internet-based communications, laptop computers and personal digital assistants could become de facto satellite ground stations."

W.. h.. y... w.. o.. u.. l.. d... y.. o.. u

[JohnnyGTO]

w.. o.. r.. r.. y.... a.. b..o..u..t....p..i.. n.. g....t.. i.. m.. e.. s....?

Re:A Space Router! Wowzers!

[maxwell demon]

You misunderstood. They are developing a router which drops everything but whitespace characters.

2AM

[CypherXero]

(Phone Rings)
Boss: The router went down, we need you to fix it...now.
You: Fuck.

Dropped packets.

[BeProf]

So what happens to dropped packets? Do they burn up on re-entry or go into an orbit?

Encryption

[AviLazar]

Now don't forget guys: Make sure to use WEP encryption keys and turn on your MAC filtering and change the default IP and password. And for god's sake, change the SSID from linksys to something else.

Re:wtf?? This is new?

[ebrandsberg]

You didn't catch that current technology doesn't do the routing IN space, it does it at a single point on the ground. This allows several uplinks to be used more effectively. As an example, if you make use of these vsat IP providers to connect between two remote sites, the communications would be ground->sat->ground (hub)->sat->ground, meaning the packets have to traverse twice as far as they otherwise would if routed in space.

Space Router

[stratjakt]

To put nice rounded edges on space cabinetry?

Hardly the first router in space...

[Mondoz]

The ISS (International Space Station) has been flying a Smart Switch Router for years in the Russian Segment of the onboard network.

The Router
Here's an ISS status report that mentions it.