Internet co-founder Vint Cerf has revealed plans to create an Interplanetary Internet that will provide astronauts, spacecraft and robotic rovers a permanent, reliable communications network and put and end to the need for costly, tailor-made solutions.

According to Technology Review, almost every new space mission has its own custom made, point-to-point communications system. With the increasing worldwide interest and investment in space missions, an interplanetary, standards-based communications network could put an end to this superfluous duplication, helping to cut the costs involved with each mission, whilst gradually improving delay times in transmissions.

Cerf is a Google VP and along with Robert Kahn, co-designed the TCP/IP protocols that provide the framework for our terrestrial Internet. He is working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and MITRE corporation in a project simply titled “Interplanetary Internet”, that is developing a standard much like TCP/IP to enable more efficient space communication. The technology will be tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as soon as next year.

The delay and disruption-tolerant network (DTN) will use store-and-forward methods which rout data through hosts who store it until a link can be made. The system will start small, with just a few active craft already in space like the ISS and Deep Impact spacecraft (now EPOXY). Each new mission that uses the required software will essentially become a new node in the network, decreasing the delay in communications and increasing the distance from which we can send and receive transmissions.

Thanks to this project, it may not be long before we have real-time voice and data links with other planets, which would offer unprecedented control for unmanned, exploratory missions. It would also bring extraterrestrial colonization a step closer to becoming a reality.

Sources:

Technology Review via The Inquirer