Aggregation of DTN bundles for channel asymmetric space communications

Delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) is considered one of the most suitable technologies to handle challenging space communications. Aggregation of multiple DTN bundles within a data transport block for space communications has been in controversy for years. In this paper, we present an experimental investigation, using a PC-based testbed, of whether aggregation of multiple DTN bundles within a single Licklider transmission protocol (LTP) block has performance advantage over the default approach of “one bundle per block” for channelrate asymmetric cislunar communications.