Concept network design for a young Mars science station and Trans-planetary communication

Abstract

NASA is planning to send a satellite with some people on it to Mars in 2019. They are calling it manned mission to Mars. This paper presents a high-level networking design to provide high bandwidth for a young and growing Mars settlement and science station. A physical network topology is described consisting of a high power ground station to communicate with orbiters. Different parts and devices of the station are connected with network infrastructure. Some examples are given for various non-obvious use cases of the network. Additionally, an upper level networking protocol is described to handle reliable communication between planets. This trans-planetary Data Mailing Protocol (TDMP) operates three processes working together: a database of retrievable files and user inbox files; a ‘parcel’ structure for data to be contained; and parcel piece fragmenting for asynchronous pipelined transmission and loss handling. Together, these systems allow ease of connection between people, scientists, and experiments.