This month, 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-bundled 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.
