NASA Wants the Solar System to Have Access to the Internet
Gareth Andrews / 8 years ago
Who remembers when you had to unplug your home phone to get an internet signal or get that else you got that annoying busy tone on the computer? We then welcomed broadband and enjoyed faster speeds without having to unplug your phone and now you can get even faster internet just on your mobile on your way to work. Now NASA is looking to bring the internet to not just this planet to everyone thanks to a new system that could see the whole solar system with access to the internet.
The success of its deployment to the International Space System (ISS) brought online the Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), a new system designed to help provide the internet in a faster and more efficient manners outside of our atmosphere.
The DTN network works by sending communication like any other Wi-Fi, the smart part comes when the solar system decides to throw something in the way of the signal. If something blocks the signal the DTN stores data and forwards it using a series of relay stations, essentially bypassing the blockage.
The only concern they seem to have at the moment is the battery life of the relays, with them having to occasionally power down to store up enough power to send the next batch of data. With all of these systems in place it won’t be long before we can get the internet on every planet in the solar system, should you ever need it.