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Vint Cerf Preps Interplanetary Internet Protocol

Posted by timothy on from the would-be-helpful-at-the-jupiter-hotel-too dept.

TechFiends32 writes "After years of working with NASA to bring Internet connectivity to deep space, scientists say Vint Cerf's efforts may be nearing completion. To combat the apparent challenges of extending the Internet into space (such as meteors and weighty, high-powered antennas), Cerf and others have made significant efforts, like adjusting satellite-based IP, and working on delay-tolerant networking (DTN) to address pure IP's limitations in space. According to principal engineer at The Mitre Corp., Keith Scott, 'The 2010 goal is designed to bring DTN to a sufficient level of maturity to incorporate it into designs for robotic and human lunar exploration.'"

5 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Caching would be great here too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    aw, shit. now goatcx will be trolled into outer space, giving a new meaning to the term black hole.

  2. Re:Caching would be great here too by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you're missing the point. The general idea here is to have a packet switched communications system throughout the solar system. That way if a probe is in the shadow of, say, Jupiter, it can bounce a signal off a probe orbiting Venus, which will relay the signal back to Earth.

    The end result would be a more robust communications system. In the future, interplanetary communications satellites could even end up doing most of the grunt-work, thus allowing probes and manned spacecraft to carry smaller communications packages designed to work with the network rather than broadcasting in as many conditions as possible.

    such a network would also be useful for astronauts on another planet or meteor. Rather than setting up a communications station, they can use orbiting satellites to relay their transmissions. (Something which NASA already does on a smaller scale with probes like the Mars rovers.)

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  3. Re:Caching would be great here too by jandrese · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Caching is very useful in space. What happens when your satellite orbits around to the other side of Mars? You have several hours of no-communication and have to store everything you were going to send (and people on the other end have to store what they were going to send to you).

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  4. Re:mooncam by __aapbzv4610 · · Score: 5, Informative

    actually there is no such thing as an earthrise on the moon, as the moon does not 'rotate' in relation to it's movement around the earth. At any point on the surface of the moon facing the earth, the earth will always be in the same point in the sky, always.

  5. Re:mooncam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong.
    Libration causes the visible face of the moon to oscillate slightly.
    Therefore, you can see an Earthrise from certain points on the moon without being in motion relative to the moon yourself.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration