SPA-212 - The Interplanetary Internet

BCS Software Practice Advancement specialist group together with the Internet Specialist Group

SPA-212 - The Interplanetary Internet
Peter Allan, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory [ http://www.sstd.rl.ac.uk/]
18:30-20:00, Wednesday 5th December 2007
(Complimentary sandwiches and refreshments from 6pm)
Venue: BCS Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA

Admission Free. Please pre-register as soon as possible under
http://bcs-spa.org/cgi-bin/view/SPA/InterplanetaryInternet . BCS London insists on being furnished with a complete list of expected attendees by close of business one week before the meeting (in this case, Wednesday 28th November). This is both for security reasons and so that they can order the right amount of food.

Please download and print out a meeting flyer from the above URL to display at your place of work. There you will also find a location map.

Synopsis

How the terrestrial internet is being extended to the planets.

Almost since the beginning of the space age, 50 years ago this October, there has been the need to communicate between spacecraft and the Earth. This is normally done with point-to-point radio links. However, as we build up infrastructure on and around Mars, and with plans to return to the Moon, we are starting to develop a true interplanetary internet.

There are physical reasons why the protocols used in long distance space communications are different to those used on the ground, although with the growth of mobile devices requiring wireless communications on an as-needed basis, there is a growing similarity between the two regimes. This talk will describe how we communicate between the ground and spacecraft and how the
interplanetary internet is being built. In the future you may receive e-mails from Peter.Allan@rover1.meridiani_plenum.mars.sol!

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) [ http://www.ccsds.org/] publishes the standards documents used by international space agencies. They are not an easy read, but they are definitive documents.

Biography

Peter Allan is the head of the Space Data Division of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus near Didcot in Oxfordshire. For some years he has been the UK representative on the CCSDS management council, so he knows who is who in space data networks. In fact he also runs a ground station for space communication at the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory.

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