you’re able to talk to almost anyone , in any turning point of the world , almost instantly because of theInternetand other advances in electronic communicating . scientist and space explorers now are search for a way to communicate almost instantlybeyondEarth . The next phase of the Internet will take us to far reaches of our solar system of rules , and lay the groundwork for a communication system for a manned missions to Mars and major planet beyond .
If we ever require to find out more about other planets , we will need a better communicating system for future space missions . Today , communication in place move at a escargot ’s pace equate to communication on Earth . There are several reasons for this :
There ’s a good fortune that humans will travel to Mars before we see the beginning of a new C . How will we communicate with these removed travelers ? Scientists , locomotive engineer and software engineer are already operate to evolve aninterplanetary Internetthat will touch base us to probes and human space traveller , and allow more info to be place back to Earth . If you ’ve ever wanted to travel into space , then this edition ofHow Stuff Will Workwill show you how the interplanetary net will enable anyone to travel into space – the way the cyberspace allows us to chit-chat alien lands without leave our desks – and what technologies will support such an astronomic communications arrangement .
Wiring the Solar System
Take a smell at the the 1997Mars Pathfinderrover mission and you will understand distance explorers need an interplanetaryInternetfor deep space communications . Data from the Pathfinder filter back at an average charge per unit of about 300 bits per mo during its charge . Most likely , your information processing system can transplant data at least 200 time faster than that . An Internet between Mars and Earth would in all likelihood yield a information transport pace of 11,000 bits per second . That is still much slower than your computer ’s transport rate , but it would be enough to station back more detailed figure of speech of the Mars surface . Mars Networkresearchers think that the transfer rate could eventually go to about 1 Megabyte ( 8,288,608 bits ) per secondly and allow anyone to take a virtual trip to Mars .
An interplanetary Internet is like the Earth ’s net on a grand scurf and with some melioration . Here are the three basic components of the proposed interplanetary Internet :
The DSN is the international connection of antennas used by NASA to cover data and ascendancy navigation of interplanetary spacecraft . It is design to allow for continuous radiocommunication communication with the space vehicle . However , recent place missions have lose communication with the DSN , including the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander missions in 1999 . There are three global facilities , in California , Australia and Spain , that make up the DSN . Each facility is equipped with one 111 - foot ( 34 - metre ) diameter gamy efficiency antenna , one 111 - fundament beam waveguide feeler ( three in California ) , one 85 - metrical foot ( 26 - metre ) antenna , one 230 - animal foot ( 70 - time ) antenna and one 36 - foot ( 11 - meter ) antenna .
In an interplanetaryInternet , the DSN will be the Earth ’s gateway or portal to that cyberspace . In a paper print by theMITRE Corp. , a company that is financing the Interplanetary Internet Study , researchers paint a picture that the DSN ’s antennas could be point at Mars to connect Earth and Mars for at least 12 minute each Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Satellites orb Mars should provide a full - time connection between the two planets . A Martian rover , investigation or human colony will put up a Mars portal to the interplanetary Internet .
Under the Mars internet plan , the DSN will interact with a configuration of six microsatellites and one largeMarsatsatellite placed in low Mars orbit . These six microsats are relay satellite for ballistic capsule on or near the surface of the planet , and they will tolerate more data to come back from Mars missions . The Marsat will collect data from each of the smaller satellites and shine it to Earth . It will also keep Earth and distant spacecraft connected ceaselessly and admit for high - bandwidth data point and telecasting of the satellite , according to Mars connection officials . NASA could launch a microsat as betimes as 2003 , with the six - microsat constellation orbiting Mars by 2009 . In 2007 , the Marsat is scheduled to be placed in a slightly higher eye socket than the constellation . All of these dates are still very tentative .
coder are developing an cyberspace file transference communications protocol to transmit the messages and overtake delays and interruptions . This protocol will act as the backbone of the entire organisation much as the Internet communications protocol ( IP ) and transmission command protocol ( TCP ) operate on Earth . IP and TCP , co - develop in the seventies by Dr. Vinton Cerf , are the courier service for our Earth - based Internet . These two protocols break up transmitted messages into packets of small information building block and route them to a specified destination .
Cerf is part of the team of scientists who are developing a new protocol to enable true Indian file transfer over the tenacious distances between major planet and spacecraft . This novel space communications protocol must keep the Internet running even if some packet of information are lost during transmission . It must also lug out dissonance picked up while crossing one thousand thousand of miles . One idea for the space protocol is called theparcel transference protocol(PTP ) , which will store and forward data point at the gateway of each planet . The protocol would sue an information request sent to a gateway and forward it to a final terminus . The gateway would then contain , process and forward data back down the path it total .
Astronomical Challenges
An interplanetary Internet will make data move drastically faster between Earth and the probe and other spacecraft that are millions of mi away . Engineers need to get over several challenge before we design our practical journeying to Mars through cyberspace . These challenge are :
On Earth , two computers connected to the cyberspace are only a few thousand miles away at the most . Because light travel at 186,000 mi per second , it convey only a few fractions of a instant to send a packet of data from one electronic computer to another . In dividing line , distance between a post on Earth and one on Mars can be between 38 million land mile ( 56 million kilometer ) and 248 million miles ( 400 million km ) . At these distances , it can take several mo or hours for a radio signal to reach a receiving station . An interplanetary net will not be able-bodied to duplicate the literal - metre immediacy of the Internet that you use . The store - and - forward method will permit information to be transmit in bundles and overcome the concern of data being lost due to holdup .
The planet of theMars Networkwill be tens or hundreds of millions of sea mile from Earth and that means that it will be hard to get up there to fix things when they go wrong . The components of these satellites would have to be much more authentic than those encircle Earth .
cyber-terrorist posture the biggest threat to an interplanetary net . Break - ins and corruption of navigation or communication systems could be disastrous for space missions , and even cause death in manned - ballistic capsule missions . Developers are take every precaution to contrive a system that will be able to keep in line access . The communications protocol take will have to be impenetrable to hackers , something that has not been potential on Earth . Developers may look at the Secure Sockets Layer ( SSL ) protocol used for financial transactions as a model for securing the interplanetary net .
The interplanetary Internet will possibly cable us to Mars within the 10 and to other planets in the decades to follow . It will no longer be necessary to go into blank to know space travel . Instead , infinite will be brought right to your desktop . With enhancements made to promote data point rate carry-over , you and I might soon be capable to take a a virtual infinite misstep to the mountains of Mars , the band of Saturn or the giant spot on Jupiter .
