NASA, ESA Use Experimental Interplanetary Internet to Test Robot From International Space Station

Nov. 8, 2012

Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-391

NASA, ESA USE EXPERIMENTAL INTERPLANETARY INTERNET TO TEST ROBOT FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

WASHINGTON -- NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully
have used an experimental version of interplanetary Internet to
control an educational rover from the International Space Station.
The experiment used NASA's Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN)
protocol to transmit messages and demonstrate technology that one day
may enable Internet-like communications with space vehicles and
support habitats or infrastructure on another planet.

Space station Expedition 33 commander Sunita Williams in late October
used a NASA-developed laptop to remotely drive a small LEGO robot at
the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The
European-led experiment used NASA's DTN to simulate a scenario in
which an astronaut in a vehicle orbiting a planetary body controls a
robotic rover on the planet's surface.

"The demonstration showed the feasibility of using a new
communications infrastructure to send commands to a surface robot
from an orbiting spacecraft and receive images and data back from the
robot," said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for space
communications and navigation at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"The experimental DTN we've tested from the space station may one day
be used by humans on a spacecraft in orbit around Mars to operate
robots on the surface, or from Earth using orbiting satellites as
relay stations."

The DTN architecture is a new communications technology that enables
standardized communications similar to the Internet to function over
long distances and through time delays associated with on-orbit or
deep space spacecraft or robotic systems. The core of the DTN suite
is the Bundle Protocol (BP), which is roughly equivalent to the
Internet Protocol (IP) that serves as the core of the Internet on
Earth. While IP assumes a continuous end-to-end data path exists
between the user and a remote space system, DTN accounts for
disconnections and errors. In DTN, data move through the network
"hop-by-hop." While waiting for the next link to become connected,
bundles are temporarily stored and then forwarded to the next node
when the link becomes available.

NASA's work on DTN is part of the agency's Space Communication and
Navigation (SCaN) Program. SCaN coordinates multiple space
communications networks and network support functions to regulate,
maintain and grow NASA's space communications and navigation
capabilities in support of the agency's space missions.

The space station also serves as a platform for research focused on
human health and exploration, technology testing for enabling future
exploration, research in basic life and physical sciences and Earth
and space science.

For more information about DTN, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/SxV9QS

For more information about SCaN, visit:

https://www.spacecomm.nasa.gov

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station


-end-



To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov