Internet connecting planets in the solar system

NASA plans to develop an interplanetary communication system in the solar system that would function like the Internet on Earth.

Communication system between planets in the Solar System. Photo: NASA.

According to UPI, the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is installing software on the International Space Station (ISS) to make information exchange faster and easier. This also creates the premise to establish an Internet system covering the entire Solar System in the future.

A new communications protocol called Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) has been added to the ISS Telescience Resource Kit (TReK). TreK is a software application that allows users to send and receive information from a ground base to an ISS signal relay point 400 km above Earth.

On Earth, information is transmitted from one point to another on the Internet through a series of nodes, or information transmission points. These need to be continuously and sustainably connected during the data transmission process.

In space, data transmission can be disrupted by the constant movement of planets and satellites. In a DTN system, data travels in short hops between nodes, which can be satellites or relay stations. DTN stores data and only sends it when a node can establish a secure connection with the next node. This way, data packets are not lost and errors are minimized.

The new method of transmitting information holds promise for use on Earth where communication links may be unstable, such as at the scene of a disaster.

“Our experience with DTN on the International Space Station (ISS) leads to many other applications on land, especially for mobile communications, where connections can be unstable and intermittent,” said Vinton Gray Cerf, Google’s vice president of communications.

According to VNE