An internet for the final frontier

US space agency NASA has successfully tested a deep-space communications network known as an "interplanetary internet".

The communications system, modeled on the World Wide Web, is used to transmit information and images to and from a NASA spaceship some 20 million miles from Earth.

NASA is using specially-designed software, called Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN), which which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space.

It was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Google, often referred to as the 'father of the internet'.

The interplanetary internet differs from the model we earthlings use which assumes a continuous end-to-end connection.

This is not possible to use on space missions when a spacecraft moves behind a plant or a solar storm interrupts communication.

Delays in sending or receiving data from Mars takes between three-and-a-half minutes and 20 minutes at the speed of light, NASA said.

Instead information is stored in data packets and stored until they can be transferred to another node.

Data packets are not discarded but kept by each network node until it can communicate safely with another node.

NASA said that the 'interplanetary internet' could enable multiple spacecraft missions in the future as well as ensure reliable communications for astronauts on the the moon.

www.nasa.gov

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