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The Tech Aboard the International Space Station

Posted by kdawson on from the networking-in-circles dept.

CNETNate writes "With its own file server for uploaded Hollywood blockbusters, a 10Mbps Internet connection to Earth, and around a hundred IBM ThinkPad notebooks, the consumer technology aboard the $150 billion International Space Station is impressive. It's the responsibility of just two guys to maintain the uptime of the Space Station's IT, and they have given CNET an in-depth interview to explain what tech's aboard, how it works, and whether Windows viruses are a threat to the astronauts. In a related feature, the Space Station's internal network (which operates over bandwidth of just 1Mbps) and its connected array of Lenovo notebooks is explained, along with the tech we could see in the future."

4 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Issues with such networks generalize to Mars by JustOK · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's been done: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/nov/HQ_08-298_Deep_space_internet.html

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  2. Got UUCP? by winkydink · · Score: 4, Informative

    Once upon a time, large portions of the internet were "store and forward."

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  3. Re:Interesting thought by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Informative

    OK you get two points for +1crazy. Point 1; the ISS completes an ENTIRE orbit in 90 minutes. That means that if you had an antenna pointed straight up, and say you used a moderate gain antenna with a 5 degree beam, you will get just over ONE minute of access before you need to adjust the antenna. You would need a pretty sophisticated ground tracking mechanism to have any hope of keeping the connection alive for more than a minute.

    On to 2. WiFi uses an ack timeout in the microsecond range. This means that for a typically configured transceiver, you are racing the speed of light with that timeout window. The practical limit happens to be around 20 miles, or 32 kilometers. Not quite enough to get you to the ISS.

    Good luck, though!

  4. No backup file server? o_O by argent · · Score: 4, Informative

    "One thing that really impacts the crew's day-to-day operations is if the file server itself fails. This forces them to reload the hard drive and re-establish all the network drives and all the apps. They actually have to get out the media and load the image to the hard drive. That's a significant hit for the crew because we can't do everything for them from the ground.

    Jesus Christ, given the cost per minute keeping those guys up there, I'd think they'd at the very least have redundant servers with redundant media.