Intelsat Launches Hardware For Internet Routing From Space

coondoggie writes "A radiation-proof Cisco router was sent into space today aboard an Intelsat satellite with the goal of setting up military communications from space. The router/satellite combo is a key part of the US Department of Defense's Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to route IP voice, video and data traffic between satellites in space in much the same way packets are moved on the ground, reducing delays, saving on capacity and offering greater network flexibility, Cisco stated."

Comments

Intelsat by Cisco

[Anonymous Coward]

If they manufactured it in China then the back door is already built in by the factory so the Chinese can read all traffic or interdict it in a crisis.

mcmurdo.gov

[Doc Ruby]

Back in the earlier days of the less popular Internet, I used to get a kick out of pining mcmurdo.gov , the US base in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, because it was as far as I could reach on the Net (ping times usually about 800ms). Before I'd traveled very much around the physical globe, I'd stretch my imagination to the scale spanning "me to McMurdo".

I'm really psyched to look forward to pinging Jupiter.

Re:Not even Cisco

[oldspewey]

I thought I read somewhere that lead is exactly the wrong thing to use if you're shielding against cosmic rays. While cosmic rays themselves are most likely to pass right through human bodies or sensitive electronics without "hitting" anything important. If you shield with lead, the cosmic rays do an excellent job busting alpha (or was it beta) radiation loose from the lead itself, which then wreaks havoc when those particles collide with humans or electronics in the surrounding environment.

Particle physicists, please chime in here and correct my (I am sure numerous) errors.

Re:No Viop for you

[petermgreen]

I see a few advantages to this

The first is it reduces the latency when two forward bases want to communicate with each other.

The second is that it means your forward bases can communicate with each other even if your main base is somehow knocked out.

The third is it reduces the load on the downlink to main base.

Of course there are trade-offs to smart satellites, you can't use more complex modulation to get more out of an existing channel for example but you can't easily do that anyway if your satellite is serving lots of ground stations and we are getting pretty close to the limit on modulation efficiency anyway. So I think your "obsolete in two years" is overstating the case severely.