Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Interplanetary Internet Tested In Space

Posted by timothy on from the best-place-for-it-really dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "After Vint Cerf planned the Interplanetary Internet, there's a press release saying that the Interplanetary Internet is now being tested in space, using the Bundle Protocol developed by the Delay-Tolerant Networking Research Group. There's a conference paper with details on the testing too. These guys were previously the first to test IPv6 in space. Now they've found something with even fewer users than IPv6 to play with!"

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Hams had it in 1985 by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Radio amateurs ran a wide area IP network over 1200 baud AX.25 half-duplex links in 1985, and wide area networks without IP before then. You could literally hear your packet being relayed from point to point. The IP software of the time (KA9Q NOS, and later on Linux) could handle the delays just fine. It wasn't the 30-minute delays of planetary communications, but certainly much slower than conventional IP networks, seconds per packet and tens of seconds for packets to be forwarded and acknowledged. Linux has had the features necessary to do this way back in the Waltje (Fred Van Kempen) networking software, before Alan Cox started working on it. Waltje was a Dutch CB packet enthusiast. Sometimes people turn that stuff on and don't realize they aren't the first ones.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  2. Re:What's the point? by Zarhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, Delay-tolerant Networking has applications that go beyond just space. One prime example is acoustic networks for oceanic monitoring - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4302188/4302189/04302341.pdf has a nice paper about the application. Also, battlefield communications where there may be intermittent connectivity benefits from DTN.

    Anyway, the reason for getting direct IP connectivity to space probes is to reduce the overhead: If you can just say wget http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mars/opportunity/todayspic.jpg to access Oppy's camera instead of having to go through various hoops it makes everyones work easier. Combine this with dynamic and automatic routing (for example, for solar oppositions)..So yes, mostly the benefits are for scientists and engineers in space projects.