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NASA Tests Deep-Space Network Modeled On the Internet

Posted by kdawson on from the here-hold-this dept.

hcg50a writes "NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth. The store-and-forward protocol was designed by NASA in consultation with Vint Cerf. Here's a discussion from last July before the test began."

9 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine... by pitchpipe · · Score: 3, Funny

    lolcats in space!

    --
    Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    1. Re:Imagine... by jd · · Score: 4, Funny

      Elebenty of tehm! Running Beowulfs!

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Searching Doom 3 servers... by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Funny

    CLANWARS_PUBLIC#1 LAVAPIT-BIG UDP 56
    LOL-GIBBERISHED OH!NOSHIT_ctf UDP 68
    PLAYTIME.DOT.UK DM_HOLYGROUNDS UDP 254
    FRAGFEST_REDPLANET DM_HELLHOLE UDP 2,139,442

    Ping of 2 MILLION? WTF ?!?

  3. Re:very exciting by Star+Particle · · Score: 3, Funny

    I agree, this is very exciting news in terms of internet devel- *error: connection dropped*

  4. Re:bollocks by Spikeles · · Score: 4, Funny

    then what will we call a communication protocol that works well between stars

    Interstellar?

    --
    I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
  5. Re:Remember FIDONet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We already have a working _global_ _worldwide_ _free_ network based on store-and-forward protocols.

    It's called FIDONet. It's almost dead now, but it was very alive during early 90-s before the advent of cheap Internet.

    Kids...

    We shall, respectfully, remove ourselves from your lawn.

  6. Re:DRM by Directrix1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, but while you guys were talking about that, I trademarked Subcasting (TM).

    --
    Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
  7. Re:very exciting by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't worry, everybody.
    The rest of the post will come within the hour. Or maybe next week.

  8. Re:bollocks by plover · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think Microsoft may have been considering the scope of this problem for a long time. They stopped the hubristic practice of naming "guaranteed unique" identifiers as UUIDs (Universally Unique IDentifiers) and started referring to them as GUIDs (Globally Unique IDentifiers.)

    Why would they change horses in the middle of the race, with all the expense of changing documentation, supporting two naming systems, and all of the resultant confusion, unless there was a reason to not refer to them as "Universal"?

    OK, maybe it's because they were trying to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" the RFC defining UUIDs. But I'd prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, and say that they were "forward thinking", looking at the problems of networking in space.

    BWA HA HA HA! Sorry, I couldn't keep a straight face for that last bit.

    --
    John