NASA Successfully Tests First Deep Space Internet

November 19, 2008 | Source: KurzweilAI

NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet, using software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, developed with Google vice president Vint Cerf.

Unlike TCP/IP on Earth, the DTN uses a store-and-forward method to deal with long delays between hops.

In the next few years, the Interplanetary Internet could enable many new types of space missions. Complex missions involving multiple landed, mobile and orbiting spacecraft will be far easier to support through the use of the Interplanetary Internet. It also could ensure reliable communications for astronauts on the surface of the moon.

Source: NASA news release