Lab: Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking - Building a Scenario from Scratch (4.1c)

Communicating from Earth to any spacecraft is a complex challenge, largely due to the extreme distances involved. When data are transmitted and received across thousands and even millions of miles, the delay and potential for disruption or data loss is significant. Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) is NASA’s solution to reliable internetworking for space missions. One software option to implement DTN is NASA’s Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION).

This video walks the viewer through the process of building a three-node ION network from scratch. Because the endpoints of each communication link need to agree on the protocols and options used for the link, and because ION nodes need to be explicitly configured with routing information (via the contact plan), there are a number of interdependencies among the configurations on different ION nodes. This exercise goes through the process of setting up a three-node network, taking those interdependencies into consideration.