Media News - Wednesday, September 28, 2011

NASA wants Internet access in space

NASA hopes to extend the use of the Internet across the solar system as one of a host of key enabling technologies to help achieve future goals for human space exploration. The space agency recently published the Global Exploration Roadmap, the result of collaboration between multiple space agencies around the globe, to find "feasible and sustainable exploration pathways to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars," according to the document. Now that NASA has ended its space shuttle program, the agency is turning its attention to developing a new space-launch system and crew vehicle that can carry astronauts beyond near-Earth orbit and deeper into space, among other technologies. The roadmap identifies two mission key goals, Asteroid Next and Moon Next, and outlines some of the technologies that will be needed to facilitate them and other future space missions. Among other technologies, the document calls for the expansion of the Internet throughout the solar system by developing advanced communication and space internetworking capabilities. NASA and other agencies will test the technology by setting up disruptive tolerant networking nodes on the International Space Station to try to figure out how to handle long time delays and communications interruptions that come with deep space communication, according to the document. (Information Week)

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