Communications Across Complex Space Networks

Complex space missions face the challenge of reliably maintaining the definition, content and context of information across distributed and evolving space networks. This requires architectural abstractions of information relationships and services (e.g. XML schemas and messaging infrastructures). Over seven years of field study of the SharedNet distributed military communication system, along with interplanetary communications network infrastructure (ICNI) and Interplanetary Information Services (IIS) space network research efforts have demonstrated the benefits of an object-based communications architecture (OBCA) for space software development and integration. The OBCA has also been shown to be capable of providing reliable content-based publish-subscribe "need only" data delivery in a space-based communications environment using a JPL developed space link simulator. This paper shall describe findings of these efforts, explain relevant benefits for complex space network communications and suggest further avenues of study in this domain.