Vint Cerf works on the interplanetary Internet
The co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, the digital alphabet used in communications among devices connected to the Net, is persuaded to be able to make a revised version of the same standard work in space between the planets of the Solar System, and maybe even beyond. Vinton “Vint” Cerf, who nowadays is vice-president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, works far-back on the extension of network communications beyond the Earth atmosphere.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory makes use, since decades yet, of the huge antennas of the Deep Space Network for the management of bi-directional communications with spacecrafts sent into exploring space and planets, but what is thinking about Cerf with colleagues of the above said NASA and other USA research centres goes far beyond the DSN, having as its aim the implementation of communication channels between distant human outposts into universe and the mother planet.
A challenge that can be easily considered as the most complex to face into modern networking field, seemingly so depending on the exchange of huge amounts of information with speed just a little less than immediate. Performances that, in space, lost all of their meaning: the speed of light - and so of the electromagnetic communications - can’t possibly go beyond 300,000 kms per second, and even just to send a “hi, how are you?” from the Earth to Mars and then receive the answer there would be needed 20 minutes at least.
The other problems to face in an hypothetical interplanetary network communication include the possible presence of obstacles on the bits’ pathway from the source to the client (ie passing asteroids), the necessity to make the huge antennas to install for signals reception go beyond the Earth atmosphere and obviously the mandatory availability of devices capable of auto-repairing themselves in case of damages: it’s difficult to think about a technician available in the Sunday morning, to send out on a planet millions of kilometers away to reinitialize the machine from the control console…
To the challenges posed by the interplanetary communications, Cerf and fellows try to reply with the first drafts of practical solutions. One approach, for example, reckons on the adaptation of design of the satellites already working on the Ka band (corresponding to microwaves in the electromagnetic spectrum between 18 and 40 GHz) and used in government and business networks.
Another one tends to provide a solution to the huge delay of bits transmission between client - that in the example already pointed out is on Mars - and server here on Earth. In this case the answer is called Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN), and counts on the possibility to store information travelling toward our planet on intermediate interplanetary nodes, capable of retransmitting data autonomously without having to wait for the resent of a packet from the source as it usually happens with the TCP/IP protocol on the Internet.
According to NASA’s plans the first practical testing of DTN should start by the end of 2010, with demonstrative flights, satellites and the use of International Space Station (ISS) installations to test the reliability of the new technology. The aim, on the middle term, is to make DTN become mature and standardise just in time for the return of man on the Moon, set by the end of 2020 by the American space agency.
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