“Interplanetary Internet” Passes First Test

NASA just completed the first deep-space test of what could one day become the interplanetary internet. Images of Mars and its moon Phobos were sent back and forth between computers on Earth and NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft. Instead of TCP/IP a new protocol, named “Disruption/Delay Tolerant Networking” (DTN) was used. Information is only sent once with DTN, and stored at each node until another node is available to receive the information.  To prevent hackers from interfering with the network, information that is transmitted over DTN is encrypted. The team at NASA is hoping to get the protocol accepted by the international community and setup a permanent node at the International Space Station next year.

[via Warren Ellis]

12 thoughts on ““Interplanetary Internet” Passes First Test

  1. yarrgh….

    We are the pirates, we don’t do anything…

    We just stay home and lie around…..

    And when you ask us, if we don;t do anything….

    we tell you.. we don’t do anything….

  2. Technically speaking, this actually is a hack. The Epoxi craft, used to be called Deep Impact.

    So NASA took something that was intended to smash apart comets and, basically, turned it into a wireless router with a huge frame buffer. Sweet.

  3. They’ve had an article on howstuffworks about this for years. It’s actually *at least* 4 decades old, as far as usage goes.

    All the old space missions used it. I guess they’re adding unique identifiers to planetary nodes, and routing algorithms or whatever.

    NASA will encrypt it, hash it, and slap a heavy subscription fee on it.

    You’d probably be shot for trying to intercept Mars Lander feedback.

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