Advancing Technology for Interplanetary Internet
ISS National Lab-Sponsored Research Paves the Way for Future Space Communications
For future missions on commercial space stations, the Moon, and Mars, the ability to send data and communications across the solar system will be crucial. But developing an interplanetary Internet is challenging. The long distances data must travel cause delays, and the movement of planets and spacecraft leads to signal disruptions.
“The ISS was the ideal place to demonstrate our DTN platform for interplanetary networking.”
Alberto Montilla, Spatiam
To address these challenges, Spatiam Corporation developed a commercial platform for space communications based on Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN). The platform stores data bundles at intermediate nodes in the network until a path to the next node or final destination is available. Spatiam needed to confirm its platform worked in space, and the National Laboratory provided the optimal test bed.
“The TCP/IP protocols we created for the terrestrial Internet work well in a relatively low-latency, high-connectivity environment, but they’re not so attractive when you get to the deep space environment,” said Vint Cerf, one of the two “Fathers of the Internet” who co-led the development of DTN.
“The ISS was the ideal place to demonstrate our DTN platform for interplanetary networking because it provides a real-life operational scenario,” said Alberto Montilla, Spatiam co-founder and CEO
Through its successful ISS National Lab-sponsored demonstration, Spatiam raised the technology readiness level of its platform to TRL 7, which is one step away from flight certification. Earlier this month, Spatiam discussed the project and its exciting results at the Space Software Summit in Boulder, Colorado.
“The most important thing for us as a company is being able to gain the operational experience to manage networks in space, and having access to that through the ISS National Lab was a fantastic opportunity,” Montilla said.