Seminario: DTN overview: building a Solar System Internet

Contatto di riferimento: Prof. Carlo Caini

About the speaker

Scott Burleigh has been a software engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, since 1986. Mr. Burleigh co-authored the specification for the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) File Delivery Protocol (CFDP), an international standard for file transfer over interplanetary distances, the DTN Architecture definition (Internet RFC 4838), the specification for the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP, Internet RFC 5050) and for the Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP, Internet RFCs 5325 through 5327) supporting data block transmission reliability at the data link layer.

Mr. Burleigh leads the development and maintenance of implementations of BP and LTP software, with the long-term goal of enabling deployment of a delay-tolerant Solar System Internet. The ION version of DTN software is now in continuous operation on the International Space Station and is being used for operational studies on-board the EO-1 Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

Mr. Burleigh has received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal and four NASA Space Act Board Awards for his work on the design and implementation of these communication protocols.

Abstract

Last June NASA took a major step toward creating a Solar System Internet by establishing operational Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) service on the International Space Station. The DTN service will help automate and improve data availability for space station experimenters and will result in more efficient bandwidth utilization and more data return.

DTN works by providing a reliable and automatic "store and forward" data network that stores partial bundles of data in nodes along a communication path until the parts can be forwarded or retransmitted, then re-assembled at the final destination - either to ground stations on Earth, robotic spacecraft in deep space, or, one day, humans living on other planets. This differs from traditional Internet Protocols that require all nodes in the transmission path to be available during the same time frame for successful data transmission.

This first use of the service as an operational capability on a space mission marks the beginning of the space station as a node in the evolving Solar System Internet. In addition to use in space, DTN can benefit environments where communications are unreliable, such as disaster response areas.