Preliminary results of a technology demonstration of the internet routing in space capability over a geostationary communications satellite

Abstract

The Internet Protocol Routing in Space (IRIS) was developed by an industry group, under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense 1 as a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD). The primary goal of the IRIS JCTD is to assess the network capability and operational utility of an IP router in space. This paper discusses the results obtained from laboratory and field tests which were specifically designed to evaluate the functionality and performance. Most of the results were obtained during a recent demonstration using 3 ground terminals operating with the IRIS payload on-board INTELSAT-14 (IS-14). Emphasis is given to application and network performance resulting from the end-to-end Quality of Service and Bandwidth on Demand capabilities of IRIS.

Software Defined Satellite Networks

“…Digital signal and upper layer packet processing that has revolutionized ground networking components, including those belonging to communications satellite systems, has generally not influenced the communication satellite payload designs. Even though there are noticeable exceptions, including the experimental IP Router in Space (IRIS) [2] and the production SPACEWAY [3] satellites with onboard packet processing capabilities, the SWaP constraints, system complexity, and space qualification costs have typically limited the use of powerful digital processing capability in satellites.…”

Software defined satellite networks: Benefits and challenges

“…In the aspect of network technology, the IP-based broadband satellite networks have been proposed as the developing trend. Cisco Corp has put its terrestrial commercial router with space reinforcement into the low earth orbit (LEO) and geostationary orbit (GEO) through project CLEO [2] and IRIS [3] respectively, proving the feasibility of IP-based satellite network even with terrestrial commercial routers.…”