All keynote sessions, technical tracks, and governance presentations from the IPNSIG's Space Summit 2025 virtual event are now available for on-demand viewing. Whether you missed the Summit or want to revisit your favorite sessions, you can now watch every presentation directly from the Events  menu on the IPNSIG website. This year’s program featured an exceptional lineup, including keynotes from Yosuke Kaneko and the joint Vint Cerf/Yosuke Kaneko session, deep-dive technical briefings on DTN, CCSDS standards, space/underwater network parallels, container-based network emulation, planetary robotics, governance discussions, and the live ION Pi Lab. The full collection of technical and governance sessions is now organized and available online. If you’re exploring Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networking, the Solar System Internet, space policy, or next-generation mission architectures, these recordings offer a complete archive of thought-leading work from across the community. Visit the Events  page and start watching. The future of interplanetary networking is unfolding... one session at a time.

Are you interested in learning more about Delay and Disruption Tolerant (DTN) networking, the Bundle Protocol (BP), the Solar System Internet (SSI), and more? The Technical Documentation Working Group created a Zotero library filled with hundreds of resources - from technical documents to podcasts to IPNSIG Academy Keynote recordings. When you click the Library link on the menu, a separate tab will open in your browser and display the IPNSIG Library. On the left, click the 0-Introduction to IPNSIG and this Library folder icon to view helpful information on using the library. Note that in this folder, there is an item called - 000 START HERE that provides basic information about the library sections and explains how to search, create citations, create bibliographies, export references, and submit new items. Enjoy!

At the end of September this year, speakers from IPNSIG travelled to the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in Trieste, Italy. The first leg of my journey was from SEA-TAC to Heathrow, a flight with an average duration of 9 hours and 45 minutes, easily divided between two movies, several lukewarm coffees, the hallmark half-sleep of a man who has forgotten his neck pillow, and a brief (if uneasy) truce with the in-flight “meal”. If I had sent a message to Voyager 1 before boarding that flight, at light speed, that message would still need about 12.05 hours to arrive at the time I walked off the plane. Moving at the maximum speed of any object in the universe, the time required for a transmission to reach Voyager 1 from Earth is more than double the time of my transatlantic hop. When the fastest rate of transmission in the universe waits nearly a day to be received, you stop designing for “always-on” and start designing for delay. That’s the mindset behind DTN - and the throughline of ICTP’s Workshop on Empowering Connectivity: Bridging Space and Earth with DTN , organized by Samo Grasic, the head of IPNSIG’s Pilot Projects Working Group. Now, let’s imagine you are sending a message Earth to a rover on Mars, and let’s assume that Mars is at its closest approach to Earth, and that you can instantly send this message at the speed of light with no atmospheric or solar interference. Ideal conditions! Message Sent… Back to the shore of the Adriatic and into the classroom. IPNSIG members were present to speak, mentor, and host a lab that put Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) into the hands of attendees. Attendees were similarly diverse, representing innovation in the most remote regions of the world, solving problems ranging from monitoring flooding rivers in Malaysia to creating new, sustainable education opportunities in underdeveloped regions of Kenya to advancing federated machine learning in UAVs for biosphere monitoring. By week’s end, attendees had booted Raspberry Pi 5s as Internet Overlay Network (IONe) nodes, seen bundles move, sent multi-hop messages and files to their fellow students, and left with a working IONe-compatible node and, more importantly, a mental model of how to design for disruption - on Earth or in space. The workshop gathered a rare cross-section: space-mission veterans, ground-network practitioners, and researchers focused on underserved regions. All were unified in the purpose of bringing communications to the edge of human habitation and exploration, and focused on one question: how do we make connectivity work when links are intermittent by design? The Internet is for everyone – even in space.                                                           -Vint Cerf The program paired in-depth talks with hands-on lab blocks: learn the logic of store-and-forward transmission, scheduled contacts, and IONe, then build.   The workshop was organized by: Samo Grasic  (IPNSIG Pilot Projects lead) designed the lab, kept the week on rails, and connected space-first thinking to real terrestrial deployments. Marco Zennaro (ICTP) organized the workshop with Samo Grasic and was the liaison between the ICTP and IPNSIG. Vint Cerf (Google, IPNSIG/ISOC founder) opened with the why and the where-to-next, reminding us that resilient networking is as much a public good  as a technical craft . Along with guest speakers and technology pioneers from around the world: Nii Narku  (University of Cape Coast, University of Ghana) brought his experience as the father of the African internet to contextualize the efforts of communications innovators and provide a vision of the connected world. Scott  Burleigh  (JPL, ret., IPNSIG Board Member), co-author of the Bundle Protocol (RFC 5050) and Licklider Transmission Protocol (RFC 5326), walked us through first principles and how they map onto today’s missions. Keith Scott  (CCSDS DTN WG, IPNSIG Board Member) brought the pragmatic routing and operations lens: when to lean on CGR, when opportunistic paths win, and how to make real links behave. Leigh Torgerson  (JPL PTL; IPNSIG) laid down the historical arc and timeline of DTN and ION, then dove deep into ION’s internals and the decisions that shaped it in flight and on the ground. Roberto Gaetano  (ICANN veteran) added the governance and standards view, revealing what it takes to align multi-stakeholder realities with DTN’s promise. Laura Chappell  (Chappell University, IPNSIG Academy Lead) translated theory into packet-level intuition, using traces to make custody, timers, and convergence layers visible. Life in the Lab We started in the classroom each day. After primers from the experts - why DTN is scheduled-first , how plans/ranges/contacts interlock, why we make the routing choices we do, and how to account for the speed of light just being too slow- we moved to the lab benches to make those ideas real.   My Echo, My Shadow, and Me Before touching the network, attendees launched two IONe instances on a single Pi and passed a bundle between those instances via loopback. A quick bping (and bpecho) confirmed custody and contact graphs were working; logs and (optional) packet captures made the bundle lifecycle visible. No cables, no surprises. This is a simple and direct way we like to start our DTN labs. Hello Neighbor Each pair then got to dive into the config files and define their first neighbor node. This gave attendees a hands-on experience manually configuring the trifecta of range, contact, and plan that underpins the Contact Graph Routing (CGR) in ION. A Skip, Hop, and Jump With confidence up, it was time to introduce a third hop, creating a network rather than a single link between two nodes. This involved creating contacts, plans, and ranges for each attendee’s two closest neighbors. With all nodes on Tailscale VPN, participants were now able to form multi-hop links between nodes. To the Ends of the Earth Finally, Samo federated everyone into the IPNSIG Pilot Projects Working Group (PWG) network, so class nodes could participate in larger, scheduled paths beyond their table. This network is shown on the IPNSIG PWG home page ( https://www.ipnsig.org/ipnsig-pilotprojects-wg ) and includes many participant nodes, now in their home countries, along with two emulated nodes: the Moon and Mars. What We Learned Our time at the ICTP in Trieste confirmed what we hoped and revealed what we hadn’t planned for. On the expected side, seeing contact graphs operate in real-time – windows of contact open, custody shift, bundles advance - reinforced how powerful scheduled paths are when the plan is predictable . On the surprising side, the diverse focus of attendees in the room surfaced new routing needs and unanticipated use cases that don’t fit neatly into fixed schedules. We saw an emerging demand for opportunistic approaches alongside CGR, plus a clear signal that ION must become more user-friendly to cast a wider net to bring in fresh challenges, new contributors, and broader deployment. The future of DTN, space communications, and ION will hinge on participation: lowering the on-ramp, inviting more hands to experiment, and letting practitioners bend the stack to challenges we haven’t imagined yet. Adoption drives innovation. If we can make ION and IONe easier to learn, easier to run, and easier to extend, DTN and many other components of space communication, such as network architecture, varieties of link-layer, federated learning or other automation advances, and much more, will all benefit from the innovative community that already exists just waiting to be tapped into. Even as IPNSIG members helped attendees configure their nodes and join the PWG network, it was clear that the education was flowing both ways. The challenges that ION was designed to overcome may not be the only challenges that it can overcome, especially given the transmission-layer agnosticism that is central to the Bundle Protocol upon which ION and IONe rely. Ensuring that “The Internet is for everyone – even in space” will be no simple or straightforward task. Questions of budget (both financial and power/resource), pace of innovation, ease of onboarding, clarity of communication and purpose, and the ever-looming aspect of governance are all being tackled by IPNSIG as an organization, and the buy-in from communities and organizations represented by the attendees at the ICTP’s Workshop on Empowering Connectivity: Bridging Space and Earth with DTN is critical to its success. Message Received! Assuming you read at an average (or just slightly above average) speed, your message to Mars from the start of this post has just arrived. Communication that goes beyond classical internet architecture is the consequence of a space-bred discipline. ION was built for predictable passes, long RTTs, and tight power, storage, and memory limits. That heritage gave us habits that matter: treat the contact plan as topology, design for store-and-forward custody, and accept that waiting on purpose is a feature, not a failure. Labs like the one in Trieste build a bridge. In the lab, we mapped those space-hardened patterns directly onto terrestrial reality without diluting them: the same IONe stack, the same scheduled-first mindset, the same discipline around custody and timers - now running on Pi-based nodes, classroom sensors, and the PWG network. The payoff is a shared goal of bending the capabilities of ION and DTN in general to fulfill the needs of humanity in a myriad of environments. In developing DTN technology, reaching the stars may be the guide, but serving humanity will always be the goal. -- With thanks to the IPNSIG members who turned principles into practice: Samo Grasic – Lab and event architect and lead Vint Cerf - Opening frame and north star Nii Narku - Vision for connecting underserved communities Scott C. Burleigh - BP/LTP first principles, logic, and vision Keith L. Scott - Routing & operations pragmatics Leigh Torgerson - DTN/ION timeline, deep dives, and details Roberto Gaetano – Guidance on governance and vital stakeholders Laura Chappell - packet-level intuition and visibility And all speakers who participated in bringing ION to Earth to help foster stakeholder communities and support the human endeavors that benefit from DTN technology. Special thanks to the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), our liaison and facilitator, Marco Zennaro, and all attendees at the Workshop on Empowering Connectivity: Bridging Space and Earth with DTN.

Pun intended, of course. Watch this space for updates from this working group.

Happy New Year! I hope you all were able to spend some time with your family and friends over the New Year holidays. Please allow me to address a few words on the ongoing activities of IPNSIG. Last year, amid COVID-19, I came to realize that the Internet is literally an essential foundation for our lives, supporting social and economic activities. The Internet has sustained and also enriched our normal daily lives connecting everyone and everything together—even under this unprecedented global crisis. When we look at the goals of IPNSIG, they present a bold mission for humanity, which is to extend terrestrial networking to space. The InterPlanetary Network (IPN) will allow people and missions to interconnect, enabling humans to expand their social and economic sphere farther into the solar system. I believe IPN will become an essential human asset there, just as we have seen with the internet today. After I assumed the chair last year, five working groups were defined to broaden the impact of IPNSIG, and some have already started their activities. This year, we will be sharing and discussing the working group products with the membership, and my hope is that IPNSIG as a whole could deliver this shared vision of IPN to the entire world. I’m really looking forward to our active discussions as we march forward. I believe we can become a leading initiative of making IPN a reality. Wishing you all a year full of blessings and filled with new adventures. Let’s all stay safe. IPNSIG Chair Yosuke Kaneko

The IPNSIG is excited to announce the release of the report, “Strategy Toward a Solar System Internet For Humanity” [IPNSIG] SWG REPORT 2021-June Assembled by the IPNSIG’s Strategy Working Group (SWG), this constitutes the first attempt to lay out a strategy toward the realization of a Solar System Internet (SSI). In this report, and taking into account the lessons learned from the creation and deployment of the Internet, we have addressed the different challenges that will define the future of this endeavour, looking a hundred years ahead. Among them: How to deliver a Solar System Internet? A mission to carry out such an endeavor will require the engagement of many stakeholders: governments, academia, private sector and the general public. To help address this, we’ve laid out a set of strategic principles that would guide the public-private efforts needed to deliver this collective mission, together with an overview of the involvement of the different stakeholders over time. Related to this, how to realize an interplanetary connectivity infrastructure that will remain sustainable: neutral, open and decentralized? For which, we’ve laid out a set of key properties that would ideally be assumed by public and private stakeholders in the pursuit of an SSI. Potential technical, operational and political challenges toward the development of an SSI are also addressed and discussed. Altogether to present an early roadmap of recommended actions toward an SSI, and stating how the IPNSIG will contribute in the pursuit of this endeavor. Indeed, the IPNSIG will keep developing its current Working Groups, with the goal of accomplishing the roles it has envisioned. Our final goal with this report is to help us all acknowledge, based on evidence and lessons learned, that the collective creation and development of an SSI could be possible. Because of this, and following the release of this report, we will engage in advocacy efforts to communicate this message to relevant public and private stakeholders, in hopes to kickstart awareness about the creation of a Solar System Internet. I am proud to march forward in this endeavor, together with the great team that we have, and with the entire IPNSIG membership. Last but not least: this report was furnished thanks to the inputs, ideas and suggestions that you shared with us at the successful IPNSIG Strategy Workshop held in February, 2021 https://www.ipnsig.org/post/executive-summary-of-the-ipnsig-strategy-workshop . This quest is a collective one, and a huge thanks to your engagement and support. Let us know of any comments, feedback or further proposals to the report, if any, by emailing info@ipnsig.org . We welcome your voices. Download the report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Te17PtMp6DSjkKA55jCXaVpZMGkHWZEm Thank you. SWG Lead and Chair of IPNSIG Yosuke Kaneko

IPNSIG members, The IPNSIG will launch the Architecture and Governance Working Group (AWG) in 2022. We would like to invite participation from the membership who would be passionate about helping us with the Working Group activity. We envision one member who would bring in valuable insights to the Working Group and willing to provide secretariat support (mainly documentation support). For more details about the AWG, please refer to the document here . If you are interested, please let us know who you are, and how you might contribute (your expertise) by providing a message to the following email address by January 21, 2022. ipnsig-awg@ipnsig.org Yosuke Kaneko IPNSIG Chairman

Dear IPNSIG members, As we approach the end of the calendar year, I see that our chapter has been extremely vigorous toward our vision of expanding networking to interplanetary space. If you recall, in 2022, we became the first space chapter, namely the Interplanetary Chapter of the Internet Society, and our work including the ones in progress are being widely noticed in the global community. As we reflect upon ourselves this year, we have witnessed the success of the Artemis1 mission which opened up a new era in space exploration. With the global momentum that is pushing our human boundaries farther into deep space, the need for a communication infrastructure continues to rise. The buildout of the Solar System Internet (SSI) has entered its prologue, and as the Interplanetary Chapter, we continue to seek a common network infrastructure that benefits humanity. In line with our vision, I would like to share some highlights of our achievements in 2022. ● Architecture and Governance Working Group The Architecture and Governance Working Group (AWG) was formed to assess the technical challenges in achieving a common network infrastructure and to explore the possible organizational structure that could support the development, governance and evolution of the SSI. The AWG aims to publicize a report next year for further discussion of our work with the broader international community, so stay tuned for more information. ● Strategy Working Group We have shared the “ Strategy toward the Solar System Internet for humanity ” report in various forums, including the NASA DTNWG, IPNSIG Academy, Eurodig 2022, STINT WS and at the recent ISOC North America-Caribbean regional call. Our work is being widely noticed and we will continue to broaden our roadmap developments in the following year. ● Projects Working Group The Projects Working Group has developed during the year a Global Network to test the Bundle Protocol Suite with the usage of DTN (Delay and Disruption tolerant networking) for the Interplanetary Internet. This network was deployed with volunteers from 15 countries and several other locations are interested in joining. The PWG DTN network has received interest from Space Agencies, private companies and developers for testing and deploying their applications on the Interplanetary Internet. A technical laboratory for testing the DTN technologies on different hardware was developed by one of our PWG members. PWG members have also tested interoperability between different DTN implementations. Several practical applications using DTN for communications have been developed and can be applied to Space travel and challenged environments on Earth as well, including mobile telephone messaging using DTN, reindeers tracking in the Arctic, environmental protection technologies in underground protected caves and medical records for space exploration. In the area of base communications technology, the PWG members have developed technologies such as IPV6 for ION DTN, ION-DTN Lora-DTN (which is used in very challenged environments) interfaces allowing the development and expansion of this technology for real life applications. Software tools have also been developed for management and operation of the PWG network. As a contribution to the public domain, several documents and open source software have been presented on the mentioned developments with the intention of facilitating the expansion of the DTN technologies for public usage. Public presentations have been performed about our work including presentations and collaboration with Space agencies like NASA, and private companies that are interested in Space travel, and plan to incorporate the DTN technologies to their deployments. You can review several videos about the various conferences in the PWG blog at http://pwg.ipnsig.space For next year 2023, the PWG plans to expand our network to Space as an immediate project. ● Technical Documentation Working Group The Technical Documentation Working Group works quietly, behind the scenes, to collect and organize published documents that can help the student or researcher or interested fan learn more about interplanetary networking. At this time, the IPNSIG Zotero Library – implemented using Zotero software and backed up each month – comprises nearly 300 items, including all IPNSIG Academy talks; all items are tagged with keywords, linked, and filed in virtual folders. In 2023 we will move the library to a new website and we will also be reviewing all of the IPNSIG Academy chat-rooms records, looking for citations of additional resources that need to be in the library. ● Outreach Working Group IPNSIG Outreach Working Group has revitalized itself with a small core team of dynamic members: Laura Chappell, Ginny Spicer and Henry Danielsen. They are already making significant headway. Laura Chappell has developed a forms-based tracking system, using SmartSheet to automate most of the processes necessary to plan, organize and execute IPNSIG Academy Webinars. Thanks, Laura! Ginny Spicer has identified a simpler web development platform for ipnsig.org, that will greatly simplify things for content creators. A real bonus is that this platform has far superior email capabilities compared to our current hosting solution. Ginny will be presenting the new website she has developed for ipnsig.org to the Board in January. Finally, Henry Danielsen has volunteered to develop remote learning content for IPNSIG Academy, providing direct engagement with educators and students, teaching them the basics of DTN. We are really excited to have these great folks on board, and are looking forward to what they will accomplish in 2023. ● IPNSIG Academy IPNSIG launched its IPNSIG Academy events in May of 2022. We have met our goal of producing a webinar each month – a total of eight webinars in 2022. Attendance has been good, with a lot of questions during the Q&A session following each presentation. We have also had a lot of views of our video recordings. You can access the video recordings and presentation materials by using the IPNSIG Zotero library, as mentioned above, or you can check out the IPNSIG Academy Events page on our website. The table there lists past and future IPNSIG Academy webinars, with links to video recordings and presentation materials as they become available. Bigger and better things are planned for IPNSIG Academy in 2023! Not only are we lining up some really great speakers, but we also want to expand IPNSIG Academy to more directly engage the educational community. More details about that in a future newsletter! Lastly, I wish everyone a very merry holiday season and all the best for the New Year. Kaneko IPNSIG President

Dear IPNSIG members, As we step into the dawn of a promising New Year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible journey we've had together in the past year and express my heartfelt wishes for 2024.   Each member plays a vital role in our shared mission, and we are thrilled to announce some remarkable milestones and exciting initiatives that highlight our collective impact. Expand networking to interplanetary space, for the benefit of humanity   Thriving Membership Our membership has soared past the 1000 mark and continues to grow steadily. This achievement is a testament to the shared passion and commitment of our members. Your dedication fuels our mission, and we are excited to welcome new voices and perspectives to realize our vision. Let’s grow our vehicle even bigger this year.   PWG Project Work The Pilot Projects Working Group (PWG) continues to be one of the most active groups within IPNSIG to mature the DTN technology. Spanning from caves, the Arctic to track reindeer, healthcare in Space, and the ground-based DTN Test network, the PWG has been vital in facilitating DTN in various use cases. All of which are to be future-ready for the Interplanetary Network.   Study on Interplanetary Internet Governance The AWG was extremely active, studying the future architectural and governance challenges of the Interplanetary Internet. In case you haven’t seen it yet, here is the IPNSIG published report , authored by the many global leaders from around the world.   IPNSIG Academy Monthly Sessions Empowering everyone with a passion for the Interplanetary Internet is one of our core missions. The IPNSIG Academy continues to be a beacon of learning, hosting enlightening sessions every month. Laura Chappell, Ginny Spicer, and Mike Snell led us last year, hosting over 10 sessions  inviting global leaders from around the world.   Inspiring the Future, the "100 Year Vision" Video We were thrilled to unveil the "100 Year Vision" video, which delivers the expansion of the Interplanetary Internet from Earth to the deep skies, spanning our solar system. This visionary video encapsulates our aspirations, goals, and the outcome of the Interplanetary Internet. We invite you to visit here , if you haven’t seen it yet.   Looking back on the DTN history, the “DTN Retrospective" Video The DTN concept has matured since its inception in the late 1990s. The "DTN Retrospective" video, led by Scott Burleigh and Mike Snell, covers our historical milestones and contains footage of how the DTN has matured. Come and visit here to look back on our history.   Aside from these activities, the first Space x Internet Summit was held at Interop in collaboration with WIDE in Tokyo, Japan - the first year that Interop highlighted Space, and we were extremely proud to host this event. Ronny Bull, Marius Feldman, Juan Fraire, Oscar Garcia, and Alberto Montilla came on stage to share their developments in DTN. The IPNSIG also presented at the APNIC convention, EuroDig, and many other forums and events to broaden the impact of our important work.   Lastly, your active engagement and contributions remain the core of who we are. Let’s do great things together. Happy New Year to everyone.   Sincerely, Yosuke Kaneko, President Yosuke Kaneko

Creating a high-speed backbone for the Interplanetary Internet Earlier this year, we were truly amazed watching the high-quality videos coming from the Mars’ Perseverance mission descend on Mars. NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is the current interplanetary communications backbone that made watching these videos possible. The DSN relies on radio frequency signals and a global ground network to provide communications from Earth to the upmost distant spacecrafts (Voyager twins), in addition to the many missions being carried out across our solar system. The Deep Space Network is completed by NASA’s Near Earth Network, a series of ground stations providing support to spacecrafts closer to Earth (all the way to the Moon) and the NASA Space network, a satellite relay service that provides up to 24×7 coverage of spacecrafts near Earth such as the International Space Station (ISS), and supporting mission launches as they transit the low Earth orbit. The European Space Agency’s Estrack network also provides for deep space and near Earth capabilities, Russia, China, Japan and India also have space networks with at least certain coverage of near and deep space. Surprisingly, the DSN was formally created in the 70’s, much before Earth’s network of networks, the Internet. At the time, data communications were not part of the day to day communications paradigms so networks were very much focused on physical (radio) and link layer (e.g. error correction and link establishment/maintenance). Because of it, the DSN as well as the space and near Earth networks have gone through major upgrades to enhance communications to adapt to digital/data communications as well as improving link and physical layer capabilities. The DSN, being a limited resource (e.g. there is only one 70 m Antenna per coverage area), is slowly becoming a bottleneck as the number of missions (and data transmission requirements) increase. It has also come to a point in which these systems have stressed out the physical characteristics of the microwave links (and coding schemes) to get the highest throughput, i.e. several Megabit per second (106 bit/sec) at Mars. This is just enough to transmit one stream of video at high definition. Now, compare this to having Gigabit (109 bit/sec) at home, and you get an idea of the data rate requirements for a settlement on the Moon or Mars. A new high-speed backbone is needed for the Interplanetary Internet! Figure. Downlink data rate evolution, from JPL/DESCANSO Deep Space Communications Book. NASA, other space agencies and the private sector have been working on the next steps in high-speed space communications. A major change that requires moving up from radio frequencies (with wavelengths in the centimeter order) to optical frequencies (tens to hundreds of nanometer). This would allow for higher throughput, in the order of hundreds of megabit per seconds to Mars. Many experiments and demonstrations are being built to elevate the technical readiness of the high-speed space optical network. • In 2013, NASA successfully launched the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) which was capable of achieving 622 Megabit per second (Mbps) from the Moon. • Later this year (2021), NASA will launch the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), a demonstration of a two way laser relay system, critical in creating a near-Earth space optical network. This is the first stepping stone in augmenting the existing radio-based TDRS (Tracking Data Relay System). The LCRD will also make use of the new Optical Ground Stations (OGS-1 in California and OGS-2 in Hawaii). Note the European Space Agency (ESA) have already made 1-way optical relay possible with their European Data Relay System (EDRS) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have completed direct link checkout with optical ground systems in preparation to provide 2-way optical inter-satellite relay services using the Japanese Data Relay System (JDRS). • Also in 2021, NASA will launch the Terabyte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) demonstration in low-Earth orbit that plans, via an optical link on a CubeSat, to achieve burst download speeds of 200 Gigabit per second, allowing for downloading large amount of data per day (Terabytes, hence the name). • In 2022, NASA plans to deliver the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) aboard the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the first experimental space user of the LCRD, with the goal of achieving bit rates up to 1.2 Gigabit per second to Earth, increasing the bandwidth for research and development experiments’ data. • Launched in 2022, JPL’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) payload will travel onboard the Psyche mission spacecraft. Starting its first year of travel (the spacecraft is expected to reach the 16 Psyche asteroid in 2026), the experiment will test optical communications over extreme distances, obtaining valuable information about pointing challenges, among others. For the ground segment, two existing telescopes are enhanced including a new Ground Laser transmitter and a receiver respectively. The goal is to achieve 10 to 100 more throughput than conventional (RF) systems using comparable size and power. These experiments and demonstrations will lead to the use of the Orion Optical Communications System (known as O2O or Optical to Orion) in the Artemis II mission aimed for 2023. The goal of the optical communications system is to be able to support throughput over 600 Megabit per second, enough to livestream ultra high-definition (also known as 4k) video from the Moon. As the above lines indicate, there is great research, development, experimentation and plans going on for creating a high-speed space communications backbone. And there is more to it. Enabling a high-speed network also requires better performance at the networking level. Existing Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) implementations may not be fast-enough in processing and routing/forwarding bundles (the data), potentially becoming a bottleneck. There are already signs of this issue in the DTN implementation on the International Space Station (ISS). Researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center are working on a High-speed DTN architecture to optimize spacecraft hardware design to better accommodate for high-speed (DTN) networking. From our group, the InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG), we encourage you to continue gaining interest in space networking, and to contribute to our mission of realizing a functional and scalable system of interplanetary data communications: The High-Speed Interplanetary Internet! Dr. Alberto Montilla IPNSIG Board Member Spatiam Corporation Founding Board Member

Dear Internauts, Another year has gone by but this one has been particularly productive for the Solar System Internet work of the IPNSIG. I want to acknowledge especially three areas of significant progress: 1. The Project Working Group, led by Oscar Garcia, has been growing in membership and making major progress putting ION and other BPv7 implementations onto new operating system and hardware platforms. Scott Johnson has outfitted BPv7 ION with an IPv6 convergence layer – a major undertaking. Please see Oscar’s PWG report for more information. 2. The digital library has grown dramatically, curated by Laura Chappell working with Scott Burleigh. This is turning into a major reference resource for people interested in the SSI. 3. The Architecture and Governance Working Group (AWG), led by Kaneko, our Chairman, has had substantive discussions aided especially by James Green (former Chief Scientist of NASA) and Scott Pace (former Executive Director of the US National Space Council). We are on the cusp of an exciting re-entry into human and robotic space exploration and commercialization. As we embark on this journey, I cannot help but think about the consequences of the discovery of the Americas in 1492 (not counting Leif Ericsson around 1000 AD!). A new world and new economic development accompanied by a range of conflicting interests. It was not until 1648 that the Peace of Westphalia established principles that still guide international relations today. As we embark on this new journey, as a species, I hope we can put aside conflict and recognize our mutual interests as Earthlings beginning a historic new journey into our Solar System and, someday, perhaps beyond that.

Congratulations to the newly-elected IPNSIG Board members, Felix Flentge and Juan Fraire.  And please welcome Laura Chappell, who will be taking on the role of Oscar Garcia's Board seat until the next AGM.  We're thrilled to have you all on the board!!  Felix Flentge Felix Flentge is a software engineer in the Ground Segment Engineering and Innovation Department at ESA's Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. He is an expert in space communication protocols and architectures, such as the CCSDS File Delivery Protocol and Disruption Tolerant Networking. Felix is actively supporting and promoting these technologies across all space mission families - from Earth Observation up to interplanetary missions. He is managing a wide range of activities from operational implementation and deployment of communication protocols and systems, inter- agency DTN demonstration activities up to academic cooperation in the areas of real-time DTN services, bundle routing and bundle protocol extensions. Felix is actively contributing to standardization and international coordination in these areas at CCSDS, IOAG and various international working groups including the IPNSIG Architecture & Governance WG. As a member of the IPNSIG Board, Felix would like to contribute to the realization of the long-term vision of an interoperable and open Solar System Internet by ensuring a coherent and harmonized approach towards the SSI across the various international bodies and working groups based on input from all stakeholders. Towards the establishment of the SSI, he is convinced that we must follow an evolutionary approach where we need to start deploying DTN to space missions and space communication infrastructure (such as Moonlight and LunaNet) now but with maybe initially limited capabilities. At the same time, we need to stay flexible and open to allow these initial small-scale networks to grow into a true SSI within the next decades as technology develops. Juan Fraire Juan Fraire is a researcher and professor at INRIA (France) and CONICET-UNC (Argentina) and a guest professor at Saarland University (Germany), where he teaches a unique course about space informatics. For more than 15 years, Juan has been investigating near-Earth and deep-space networking and informatics. He has published more than 70 papers in international journals and leading conferences and a book about Delay-Tolerant Satellite Networks co-authored with Scott Burleigh (former with JPL and an IPNSIG Board Member). Juan is the founder and chair of the Space-Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop (STINT), and he participates in diverse joint projects with space agencies (e.g., NASA, ESA, CONAE) and companies in the space sector (e.g., D3TN, Spatiam, Skyloom). Juan is currently the coordinator of a French national project called STEREO, where academic and industrial partners join efforts to develop a space-terrestrial integrated Internet of Things, with exciting prospects of realizing new interplanetary exploration concepts based on IoT. Juan recently contributed to IPNSIG with his graphical design skills, which he developed as a hobby. He is the creator of the current IPNSIG logo, including the primary and IPNSIG Academy logos. These logos were developed in coordination with Yosuke Kaneko (IPNSIG President). Juan also created the winning 100-year IPNSIG vision video , a powerful, eye-catching story-telling animation that conveys IPNSIG's interplanetary network vision. To render the 3D material, Juan developed a realistic and interactive solar system and line-of-sight communication model in Unity. The 3D game engine can serve multiple future purposes for IPNSIG: a) it can be compiled for mobile devices and provided as an educational tool where users can interact and navigate over a solar system network; b) researchers could export realistic interplanetary network topologies from the tool; and c) it can be evolved into a strategy game where users can play and create resource-efficient solar system network systems. Laura Chappell Laura Chappell is the Founder of Protocol Analysis Institute and Chappell University, as well as the creator of the WCNA Certification Program. Ms. Chappell researches, documents, and presents information on network protocols, Wireshark, network forensics, and interplanetary communications. Ms. Chappell is often called in to analyze more complex network problems that require visibility into the communications system. Her clients include the U.S. Navy, IBM Corporation, Apple, Cisco Systems, Disney, U.S. Court of Appeals, United Bank of Switzerland, Australian High Tech Crime Centre, Capital One Financial Services, U.S. Armory, Hong Kong Police Department, Symantec Corporation, McAfee Corporation, Microsoft, Bank of San Francisco, Beth Israel Medical Center (Harvard), U.S. Joint Warfare Analysis Center, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Laura is the IPNSIG Academy Lead and a member of the IPSIG Technical Documentation Working Group, Outreach Working Group, and Architecture and Governance Working Group. Laura is also the President of the Silicon Valley chapter of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA) and a member of the FBI’s Infragard. She has trained local, regional, national, and international law enforcement officers, as well as corporate security professionals on the methods and tools used to attack and defend networks. Ms. Chappell is also a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (member since 1990). In 2020, Ms. Chappell joined the Deep Packet Inspection Consortium as a Board Advisor. The DPI Consortium focuses on historical patent protection for DPI-based products and the fight against patent trolls.