Delay-Tolerant Networking

Say hello to the interplanetary internet, thanks to Vint Cerf and DTN-BP:

NASA is calling it the interplanetary Internet... what’s truly cool is the technology enabling it — it’s a protocol called Delay-Tolerant Networking, better known as DTN...

In a nutshell — we’ll get down and dirty with the tech lower in the piece — DTN allows a standard method of communication over long distances and through time delays, agency officials said. Its centering tech is similar to the IP protocol (that is the TCP/IP protocol) that is the building block of the Internet we use on Earth. That’s called the Bundle Protocol (BP).

The big difference between BP and IP is that, while IP assumes a more or less smooth pathway for packets going from start to end point, BP allows for disconnections, glitches and other problems you see commonly in deep space, Younes said. Basically, a BP network — the one that will the Interplanetary Internet possible — moves data packets in bursts from node to node, so that it can check when the next node is available or up.