Hi All, On Tue, 24 Feb 2026, Tony Li wrote:
Bill said:
I watched the TIPTOP presentation at APRICOT a couple weeks ago. It sounded like the idea is to hew as closely as practical to the existing protocol standards and practices that we have now, rather than invent an interplanetary-specific network stack. Relax the timers and change the buffering expectations. Is that about right?
To which Tony said:
Yes, that’s about right.As you well know, the Internet and IP are enormously flexible and powerful. Space agencies would gain many advantages from using as much of our technology as possible rather than re-inventing everything from the ground up (literally :-).
I take issue with the notion that there is a need to "invent an interplanetary-specific network stack" or for "re-inventing everything from the ground up." To do so ignores the existence of the Bundle Protocol networking stack, which is a stable, standardized method for delay and disruption tolerant networking suitable for deep space environments. Both CCSDS and IETF have standardized this work, multiple implementations exist, and are in production in space environments today.
As such, the assertion that there are not tools which exist to meet the needs of deep space networking is an erroneous one, and should be treated as such when considering the requirements for interstellar networking.
That said, BP is not a panacea for deep space networking. It has it's limitations as well, particularly a lack of user-facing standardized applications. Tools like NTP, for example, are not really viable in a BP only network. BP excels, however, at delivering payload data across high latency or disrupted links, as it was designed to do.
To overcome the lack of end user facing applications, IP networking is indeed desirable in locations which can support it locally; i.e. on the surface of another world, or on a large spacecraft. This creates localized IP networks. To make these interoperable with terrestrial IP networks via transit of intervening BP networks, application layer payloads are encoded as bundles, in a manner which conforms to the specific requirements of delayed or disrupted links; i.e. avoid handshaking and lookup queries across these network segments.
A full architecture for interoperable interplanetary DNS and SMTP (as a demonstrtion application/service) using this method has been developed, demonstrated, and spoken upon to both the ISP and Space communities. To ignore the existence of this and other BP related work is akin to burying one's head in the sand.
That said, we agree that dedicated IP resources should be allocated for/deployed on other worlds, however this is not for route aggregation purposes, but route filtering purposes. In this way, robust localized IP services can be enjoyed on other worlds, while interoperability with the Internet can be maintained in the application layer via transit of BP networks, in those cases where said application can be made delay or disruption tolerant. To be clear, it is not enough to encapsulate packets in bundles, nor is it sufficient to tweak timeouts and buffers. Specific pragmatic rules exist for delay/disruption tolerant application design, for which there exists a textbook, authored by a co-chair of the IETF DTN WG.
I urge everyone to make themselves familiar with the rigors of deep space networking, and the limitations which are imposed by same.
Sincerely, Scott Johnson
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