Interplanetary NetworkingYeah, we mean it.

Mars Exploration

Internet links, on a big scale!

Radios comms on, and to Mars and the Moon

Use FEC: Forward error correct -- redundant information sent to make it easy to recover data when you get an error. Used both on planet and between planets.

Often need to be in orbit to do good comms between planets.

Sun and planet can get in the way!

NASA Haughton-Mars Project 2001 International collaboration Project PlanetNet: Comms for Planetary Exploration,

CSA/NASA/SFU/CRC. MADHR: Collaborative Networking for Exploration Mobile Exploration Technologies: NASA Ames HMP PI: Pascal Lee Chief Engineer/Flight Engineer: Steve Braham Collaborators: Peter Anderson, Rick Alena, Brian Glass,

Bruce Gilbaugh

Mars, on Devon Island

Canadian High Arctic Twenty km Crater, 23 Mya Hostile, permafrost, barren,

bears Mars-like! Astrobiology Geology Exploration technology studies

Mars-like Terrain!

Another Planet

Exploration Technology Studies

Robotics Telemedicine Mission Control Field operations Human/personal comms. Internal Hab comms System security, robustness,

interoperability

Mars Arctic Research Station

Simulated Mars Habitat Two deck, landed

spacecraft format Built by Mars Society NASA researchers on-

board Full “flight” in 2001 Advanced Comms,

computing

Inside a spaceship

“Biggest Mission in the World”

Haughton-Mars Base Camp 2000

2000 Field Season: 150 researchers, 30 journalists

Communications tent connected to Internet via satellite link, 1999 onwards

Science traverses across crater region

Exploration technology studies

Base Camp Region

Arctic/Mars Explorers! Far away from help Far from base Need to talk to other

scientists Bears!

Comms/Sys on Devon

Expedition/Science support Comms systems and physics

experiments Computing experiments Systems integration

experiments Protocol studies Mission Support (NASA JSC)

High Bandwidth Field Systems

Physics limits capabilities of conventional wireless network systems in open field, high bandwidth situations.

Ground multipath dominates at high speed, and spread spectrum and frequency hopping systems fail.

Canyons mean bandwidth must be delivered in the worst multipathing situations!

Advanced Radio Technology

Systems being tested in BC Mars Analog environments for good multipath behavior.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing: advanced, but expensive. 4th generation wireless comms.

Advanced control and monitoring: close to operational needs for Mars exploration.

Radio/SatCom Integrated

Space Communications

Bandwidth, Bit Error Rate, other Quality of Service: faster, cheaper, and maybe even better!

Steerable beams on NASA ACTS: Mars-Sat analog

Marginal links, near horizon, large variation

Mars Comms Physics

Ionospheric propagation: data collection through satcom links.

Tropospheric propagation effects: through radio link behavior, combined with detailed weather data. MGS data.

Multipath performance analysis of radios. Trying to bounce radio signals

Spectrum measurement. Trying to see how complex the radio situation is in the field.

Base Camp

Geology Tent Biology Tent Kitchen Tent, with Shower! Comms Tent (SFU!) Two Toilet Tents and “Pee Drum”

(don’t ask) Village of Personal tents, far from

the Kitchen (no Bear midnight snacking!)

Building a network for Mars

Spacecraft lands on Mars Astronauts, Robots, set up radio

network Hab communicates with

spacecraft in orbit Spacecraft relays messages

between Earth and Mars. Maybe lasers.

Multiple systems

Satellite phone for emergencies

Satellite power amplifier

Satellite digital modem

Network bridge Digital network

radio

Day in the life on Mars

Wake up in morning Receive data from Mission

Control Prepare, do EVA Receive data from EVA

crew, Hab and Mission Control

Transmit data, medical data, to Earth

Radio Repeater Network

Digital packet-level repeating through exploration region

System needs to route packets to right place

Remote network status monitoring

Need for power sources Deployment in a space

suit

Roving!

Global Communication

Interplanetary Networking Protocols

IPN: Interplanetary Networking Protocol, based on older concepts for pushing large files from one planet to another. Trades interactivity for reliability

UDP: Normal UDP/IP, use commercial technology and build what you need.

Telemetry and Robotics Return of data from

remote instruments Tend to be commands

files to robot, or data files back

Earth-control of robotics Tele-operation of robotic

rovers from Hab

File transfer

Reliability Time priority effects protocol MDPv2: broadcast based,

multicast capable. Large, low time priority

IPN: Relying on FEC. Smaller, higher time priority

Applications more than both broadcast or file transfer

PolyLAB’s Interplanetary Mailbox

Use normal mail client protocols (IMAP, POP3) to deliver and read mail on mail server.

Use a special UDP-based (MDPv2) protocol to move messages between Earth and Mars.

Connected Intelligence

Extensive communication required for scientific field exploration

Mission operations requires complex modalities in Human missions

Purely robotic comms solutions don’t work Protocols define capabilities Applications define protocols Transport, then application

Videoconferencing

Broadcast Video and Audio Telemetry Can lose frames for humans Robots respond badly to partial data Humans on both sides in human missions UDP fine SCPS is the IPN equivalent.

Remote Communication

Collaborative Software

Advanced Services

Database access: access and update of information. XML standards/translation services: similar to

WML/WAP. Distributed computing: systems all over the planet Voice input and output: hands tough to use in a

spacesuit! Regional, space, network management

Need to be Alive, Need to be Happy!

Get dirty, smelly Get to know all

the habits of the team

limited entertainment

6-9 months TO Mars

18 months ON Mars

It’s about people

What’s it good for?

Disaster communications Remote communities Developing countries Testing advanced systems