A few years back, people thought of Space Internetworking as a decorative approach to space missions. Space Internetworking, however, constitutes a vital solution for future communications – the term reflects the mutual technological influence of Space into Internet and Internet into Space.
Given the amount of smart mobile devices currently available worldwide, along with the possibility of small satellites to offer internet services in the future, space can enable the widest capability to interconnect people and devices in human history. And, in a sense, this can happen based on context, location, or other criteria adjusted to social or business policies.
But, the ability to apply the power of Internet technology in support of space flight operations – in Earth orbit, at the Moon, and even in deep space – is now at hand as well. The design of more complex and productive joint space flight missions in the future is made possible through resource sharing, dynamic routing and network interoperability – that is, internet technologies are gradually incorporated into space as well.
By and large, an infrastructure for universal interconnection among humans and their artefacts is emerging. That infrastructure will unify internetworking and space flight technologies. A wide variety of innovations and applications will benefit from space internetworking:
(i) space missions can reach deep space because resource sharing among different agencies enables more paths towards the destination and far destinations will be reached
(ii) space data will not be wasted, but instead it will be exploited and disseminated to interested users – this is not happening efficiently today,
(iii) social policies will be deployed – space can support global, low-cost or free access to Internet and therefore, space can support global access to knowledge.
Having realised the research potential of Space Internetworking early on, we decided to highlight its benefits, detail a research plan and seek European support for the first European Space Internetworking Center: SPICE.
The overall activity summary of SPICE project is available for download!
