Efficient and Secure Autonomous Communications for Deep Space Missions

For complex missions that are away from Earth's resources, there is an unmet need for more autonomous operations with minimal Earth contact. This paper describes taraCoAP, an adaptation of the terrestrial IETF standard Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) over the Bundle Protocol. taraCoAP, with its innovative Cyber-Physical Autonomous Asset Observation and Management extension, provides an efficient and secure RESTful delay and disruption tolerant communication framework. taraCoAP, currently at TRL-6, has been successfully tested with Jet Propulsion Lab's latest Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION) delay tolerant networking (DTN) solution. The paper also describes Antara's Deep Space Autonomous Exploration DTN Simulator that utilizes taraCoAP Services to initiate and observe autonomous operations in deep space. Additionally, a case study in a relevant environment is presented where a cluster of satellites autonomously collaborate to form a large telescope aperture in deep space. The successful deployment of missions utilizing taraCoAP Services will enable various types of space vehicles to securely and efficiently communicate with other space vehicles independently and make possible entirely new classes of missions.