NASA Report Sees Potential for IP-Based Space Communications

NASA has released a report finding positive results from a demonstration of using a commercial, off-the-shelf router onboard a satellite in an effort to bring IP to space, and to further enhance military network-centric warfare capabilities. A Cisco Internet router was placed on a low earth orbit satellite in 2003, and subsequent tests showed how IP technology can be used to communicate with satellite payloads in space. The successful demonstrations prove that network centric operations using space-based assets and could easily be extended to air, ground and sea assets. In addition, NASA expects to save at least 25 percent of the cost of future spacecraft development by implementing architecture similar to the one tested with the VMOC. Read the report