Nasa Designs Internet-style Deep Space Communications System

摘要

As NASA sharpens its focus on lunar and martian exploration in the next decade, a team of engineers plans to have ready a deep space communications network modeled after the Internet to collect, store and forward data to and from science spacecraft.rnThe team moved a step closer to that goal in October, when it tested software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) through a series of simulations that included sending and receiving images to and from a NASA science spacecraft 32 million kilometers from Earth. Data was sent on a series of communications hops using NASA's Deep Space Network and monitored to see if the DTN would hold data for future transmission after a simulated break in the communications chain.rnDTN would eliminate the need to manually program data transmissions based on a spacecraft's orbit, distance and location relative to the ground receiving station as well as local weather conditions. DTN automates that process by allowing data to be stored and then forwarded to its intended receiver at the next opportunity, with a goal of seamless transmission similar to the Internet.