Router Tested On Satellite In Space

The Cisco router launched into orbit in September onboard a satellite built by SSTL (and on a Russian rocket) has now been successfully tested in space, and there's a video describing this and putting routers in space. A neat twenty-year coincidence here: an early Surrey satellite has been operating for twenty years, and Cisco launched its fastest router on its twentieth birthday. What do the next twenty years hold for fast routers in space?

Latency

But did they fix the latency yet?
You need ping to play Quake from space!

What do the next 20 years hold for space routers?

Only sadness for the poor routers out there all alone.

In other news...

The satellite with the Cisco router has been hijacked by attackers using a recently discovered Cisco vulnerability. Experts believe the intent is to launch a denial of service attack on the Cassini-Huygens probe. Upon gaining root access, the attackers patched the vulnerability and changed the passwords. A multi-million dollar space mission is planned next week to manually press the reset button on the router.

It's all fun and games until...

%% Unable to create EXEC - no memory or too many processes

...mmm memory leaks...

Solution? Disconnect your LAN/WAN interfaces so the rotuer frees up enough memory to create the shell. Oh, better be local when you do this...

Next headline:

"Virus tested on router on satellite in space"

-Adam

Details?

The articles were a bit lacking details, but a few things struck me.

It didn't say what they were routing between. In most instances, merchant satellites are just used for point to point connections, so they are just bent-pipes. I am assuming that they are routing between different spot-beams or transponders. Or maybe the router is actually a bridge?

One of the articles said that the satellite in question was a LEO. This means that it is in a non-stationary orbit, so ground terminals will have periodic outages, and also need to track the satellite. This complicates persistent connections.

Why would it fail?

Don't tell me they use gravity or air pressure to do switching.

Interplanetary Internet

Routers in space will be the first steps towards an interplanetary internet [ipnsig.org]. The folks at CCSDS (Consultive Committee for Space Data Systems) have been working on an interplanetary internet specification [ccsds.org] for a while now. Some additional technical details [ipnsig.org] and other information [ipnsig.org] is also available. Very interesting stuff.

Prior art?

Didn't DirectPC already have NATs in Space? And just in case I need the funny mod as well: And didn't the Muppets have PIGs in Space?

Ping Times

The problem is that the data signals are only limited to the speed on light so interplanitary internet would be impossible.. A ping of 15 minutes from Earth to Mars?

Preparation for Independance Day

With the routers in space, we can now detect when hostile alien invaders begin to use them to coordinate their attack and destruction of planet Earth!

Fortunately, the Cisco IOS vulnerabilities will remain intact to accommodate the breach of security that will save the planet Earth!

Only 2 more days to go!

Re:Just great

You might have been first had you not pointed your default route to the orbiting router. The latency killed you.