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Vint Cerf Preps Interplanetary Internet Protocol
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jul 24, 2008 02:57 PM
from the would-be-helpful-at-the-jupiter-hotel-too dept.
from the would-be-helpful-at-the-jupiter-hotel-too dept.
TechFiends32 writes "After years of working with NASA to bring Internet connectivity to deep space, scientists say Vint Cerf's efforts may be nearing completion. To combat the apparent challenges of extending the Internet into space (such as meteors and weighty, high-powered antennas), Cerf and others have made significant efforts, like adjusting satellite-based IP, and working on delay-tolerant networking (DTN) to address pure IP's limitations in space. According to principal engineer at The Mitre Corp., Keith Scott, 'The 2010 goal is designed to bring DTN to a sufficient level of maturity to incorporate it into designs for robotic and human lunar exploration.'"
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[+]
Technology: Interplanetary Internet Tested In Space 124 comments
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!"
[+]
Technology: NASA Tests Deep-Space Network Modeled On the Internet 33 comments
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."
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More work to be done (Score:5, Funny)
I assume then that at some point someone will have to write up a new RFC on "IP Over Space-Avian Carrier"?
KA9Q (Score:5, Informative)
Phil Karn's old KA9Q implementation of TCP (for amateur radio) was designed to accommodate very long delays.
mooncam (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:mooncam (Score:5, Informative)
actually there is no such thing as an earthrise on the moon, as the moon does not 'rotate' in relation to it's movement around the earth. At any point on the surface of the moon facing the earth, the earth will always be in the same point in the sky, always.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
actually there is no such thing as an earthrise on the moon, as the moon does not 'rotate' in relation to it's movement around the earth. At any point on the surface of the moon facing the earth, the earth will always be in the same point in the sky, always.
An 'earthrise' is still possible, you just have to put the mooncam on a buggy and drive in the correct direction.
Re:mooncam (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong.
Libration causes the visible face of the moon to oscillate slightly.
Therefore, you can see an Earthrise from certain points on the moon without being in motion relative to the moon yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration
Parent
Re:mooncam (Score:4, Interesting)
"Earthrise" is the name given to the famous picture taken of the earth from the moon. You have most likely seen it, it's the most famous picture of the Earth.
Africa is prominently visible in the picture, if you're curious.
Parent
Re:mooncam (Score:4, Informative)
Your argument seems good at the surface, but it's not true!
The truth is that the Moon librates [wikipedia.org] a bit (a few degrees), so there actually ARE earthrises when you are near the edge of the Earth-observable Moon surface. The Earth just doesn't do a full circle around the sky, it travels along a Lissajous figure.
Even Wikipedia is incorrect on this, at least when you look up "Earthrise".
Parent
Re:mooncam (Score:4, Informative)
Before anyone questions this: The angular span of the Moon's libration is a few times larger than the angular diameter of the Earth as seen from Moon.
Parent
Bold (Crazy) Prediction (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe not, but wouldn't it be crazy if it was?
From TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to be extrapolating quite a bit to say that this scheme is much more vulnerable to critical data loss. (And your claim about DoS is pretty irrelevant when you consider that all implementations of this protocol will be owned by NASA and their associates.)
Do you really think, based on just TFA, that Vint Cerf of all people would design such a flawed protocol? The point of custody transfer is that retransmissions can be handled by the routers that form the network, rather than wasting precious power using a planetside rover that has better things to do.
Parent
Re:From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't simply send your packet and then wipe your cache. You keep the packets at every hop it traverses until you know that it has arrived at its destination, so that you can resend it in case of a transmission error or fatal equipment failure.
Especially since you, with these distances, can have a large chunk of data in transit between two satellites due to the slow pace of light and radio waves.
That, along with the limited transmission speeds, is also one of the reasons why you do not want to resend lost packets all the way from the originator, which is still possible in the worst case scenario where the data is lost in all the routing satellites.
Unless the probe, or Mars lander or whatever also loose the data before it gets through.
Actually, such a system is more secure, from a data loss point of view, since the data can get through even if it is lost at both the originator and at some point in transfer, since it can be resent by any router that it has passed through.
It makes sensitive data vulnerable to interception though... In case some aliens where to abduct a satellite that's caching data before it can be purged. =)
Parent
Excellent (Score:3, Funny)
Now we'll be able to send e-mail to Dr Edgar Mitchell's aliens and ask them if they exist !
In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
in space... (Score:4, Funny)
in space, no one can hear you ping.
Also appropriate for station wagon full of tapes? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Per byte its probably still a lot cheaper than using SMS.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
On a less serious hand, I hope the satellite IP connections are severed from the Ethernet (like electrical plants are (or should be in some cases), or hacking a satellite will be the next goal.
Re:Caching would be great here too (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Caching would be great here too (Score:5, Informative)
More information is available on the DTN Research Group's homepage: http://dtnrg.org [dtnrg.org].
Parent
Re:Caching would be great here too (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point. The general idea here is to have a packet switched communications system throughout the solar system. That way if a probe is in the shadow of, say, Jupiter, it can bounce a signal off a probe orbiting Venus, which will relay the signal back to Earth.
The end result would be a more robust communications system. In the future, interplanetary communications satellites could even end up doing most of the grunt-work, thus allowing probes and manned spacecraft to carry smaller communications packages designed to work with the network rather than broadcasting in as many conditions as possible.
such a network would also be useful for astronauts on another planet or meteor. Rather than setting up a communications station, they can use orbiting satellites to relay their transmissions. (Something which NASA already does on a smaller scale with probes like the Mars rovers.)
Parent
Re:Caching would be great here too (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:A new area awaiting patentification (Score:5, Funny)
It has come to our attention that an earthling called Vint Cerf is making unauthorized use of our work in violation of GPTO (Galactic Patents and Trademarks Office) patent number 0932984720392837409 for Interplanetary Internet Protocol.
We demand that he must immediately cease the use and distribution of our work and that he forwards all copies and relevant documentation to us by the earliest space courier. Failure to do so will result in a lawsuit to the amount of our estimated damages of 1,008,076,123.09 galactic credits (equal to 0.0008 USD).
Very truly yours,
Aliens
P.S Greetings, Dr Mitchell
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)