Although Delay-/DisruptionTolerant Networking, which originated from research on an Interplanetary Internet, has enlarged its scope to encompass all challenged networks, space applications are still one of its most important application fields. This paper deals with DTN communication from Moon to Earth, based on the use of a lunar satellite acting as a "data-mule" to collect data from a Lander located on the far side of the Moon. To make the scenario more interesting and complex from the point of view of possible security threats, we assume that data must be transferred to a non-institutional user connected to the Space Agency Control Centre via Internet. In particular, the paper investigates the state-of-the-art ability of ION, the NASA implementation of the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP), to cope with the many challenges of the space scenario under investigation, such as intermittent links, low bandwidth, relatively high delays, network partitioning, DTN routing, interoperability between LTP and TCP BP Convergence layers and security threats. To this end, the first part of the paper contains three brief overviews of the DTN architecture, the Bundle Security Protocol and the ION implementation. These facilitate comprehension of the following sections, dedicated to a detailed description of the experiment scenario and, most essentially, to the in depth discussion of the numerical results obtained with the latest ION version (3.0).
Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) originated from research on Interplanetary Internet and still today space applications are the most important application field and research stimulus. This paper investigates DTN communications between the Earth and the far side of the Moon, by means of a lunar orbiter acting as relay. After an introductory part, the paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the DTN performance that can be achieved on the identified communication scenario. The focus is on the evaluation of the stateof-the-art ability of Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION), the NASA DTN implementation of Bundle Protocol (BP) and Contact Graph Routing (CGR), to meet the many challenges of the space communication scenario investigated (and more generally of a future interplaynetary Internet): intermittent links, network partitioning, scarce bandwidth, long delays, dynamic routing, handling of high priority and emergency traffic, interoperability issues. A study of security threats and Bundle Security Protocol (BSP) countermeasures complete the work. The many results provided, confirm the essential role of DTN in future space communications.
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