Buying Back Our Own Inventions
“NASA/GRC intends to utilize the services of Surrey Satellite Technology, Ltd. (SSTL). The United Kingdom (UK) DMC is the only spacecraft with an Internet Protocol (IP) router onboard-the Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit (CLEO). SSTL is the sole provider of IP compliant satellites that NASA can utilize to perform delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) research. NASA has already obtained licenses to transmit and receive at the DMC satellite frequencies required for the satellite ground station support.”
Editor’s note: How sad (and utterly uncreative) that the only place i.e. “sole source” that Mike Griffin can find this on-orbit functionality – one using U.S. developed software/hardware – is from an offshore provider. Someone sure dropped the ball on this one.
