Enabling the Interplanetary Internet

With more complex and numerous missions on the horizon, NASA and its international spacefaring partners are transitioning from dedicated point-to-point communication links to a network-based system. Unfortunately, terrestrial network protocols used on the Internet have limited use in the space environment because of environmental constraints such as light-time delays, transmission disruption, and planetary alignment. NASA is addressing this problem through research into delay-and disruption-tolerant networking (DTN). DTN protocols are specifically constructed to account for the challenged communications networks used in space exploration. In this article, we describe the work we are performing alongside our colleagues at numerous NASA centers to develop DTN technology. This includes APL efforts in researching and deploying DTN network management and routing techniques, combining DTN protocols with onboard storage systems for spacecraft, and using DTN as the underlying network infrastructure for robotic telepresence.