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Astronaut

The dream of a Solar System Internet is closer than ever.

Our Vision

Expand networking to interplanetary space,
for the benefit of humanity

 

For over twenty-five years, IPNSIG has been working to realize the dream of networking at interplanetary distances.

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Vint Cerf, Adrian Hooke and others at the Jet Propulsion and elsewhere tackled the problem of how to successfully cope with the delay, disruption, and other networking constraints created by the great distances and the very environment of space. The result was a series of experimental protocols– what became known as Delay & Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), including the Bundle Protocol.

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Many of the pioneers in this work are still members of IPNSIG. And the technical work, while not complete, has matured greatly. Many of the protocols have been formerly adopted by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), a global standards setting organization for civilian space flight. Moreover, a Standards Working Group has been formed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Formal adoption of DTN as a set of terrestrial Internet standards is in progress.

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Now seems the appropriate time to expand our focus to include both the infrastructure (the Solar System Internet) and the governance of that infrastructure. Especially as commercialization of space progresses, the need for a similar Space Internet that is open, trusted and trustworthy are challenges that must be addressed. Read our Strategy Working Group Report for more information.

View the IPNSIG Bylaws

Meet Our Board

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President Yosuke Kaneko

Yosuke Kaneko currently serves as the President of the Interplanetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG) of the Internet Society (ISOC), an international non-profit organization that envisions expanding networking to interplanetary space. Under his dedication and along with the entire membership, in June 2022, the IPNSIG successfully became a standing chapter of ISOC, known as the Interplanetary Chapter to promote its vision and to enhance the goals of the Internet Society.

Since he assumed the role of President in September 2020, he is leading efforts toward creating a common vision shaping the future of the interplanetary network and promoting activities including the establishment of six working groups and the publication of the “Strategy Toward a Solar System Internet for Humanity” in July 2021.

With his engineering background in avionics and communications, he has about 20 years of experience in the space field.  At the national space agency in Japan, JAXA, he has contributed to the development and operations of the International Space Station (ISS), including establishing a bi-directional communication link using Internet Protocol between the ISS and the Japanese ground system. He also led the Japanese flight control team as Flight Director between 2009 – 2010.

From April 2020 to March 2022, he had served at the Strategic Planning and Management Department of JAXA, where he had led the overall coordination of JAXA’s human spaceflight, space science and exploration programs.

Today, he serves at the Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center to promote research and development of innovative technology with non-space private sectors to enable future space explorations.

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Scott C. Burleigh
(Vice President)

Scott Burleigh recently retired from a position as Principal Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he had been developing flight mission software since 1986. A founding member of the Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force, Mr. Burleigh was a co-author of the DTN Architecture definition (Internet RFC 4838). He also co-authored the specification for version 6 of the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP, Internet RFC 5050), supporting automated data forwarding through a network of intermittently connected nodes, and was the lead author for the specification for BP version 7 (RFC 9171). Mr. Burleigh led the development and maintenance of implementations of BP and related protocols that are designed for integration into deep space mission flight software, with the long-term goal of enabling deployment of a delay-tolerant Solar System Internet. Mr. Burleigh has received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal and four NASA Space Act Board Awards for his work on the design and implementation of these communication protocols.

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Mike Snell
(Secretary/Treasurer)

Although he freely admits to being a Liberal Arts major gone bad, Mike Snell has spent over twenty years in various IT management and leadership positions at Cisco Systems and consulting/contracting firms. His technical interests include cybersecurity and technical business process change engineering.
Back in late 2011, Mike and his colleague, Konstantin Kalaitzidis, proposed to the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Internet Society that they launch a project to revitalize the inactive InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group (IPNSIG). Mike has served as Secretary/Treasurer and as Chair. Mike also served on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Internet Society.

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Vinton G. Cerf
(Board Member)

Vint is Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist with Google. At Google, Vint Cerf contributes to global policy and business development and continued spread of the Internet. Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at the Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and on the faculty of Stanford University. Vint Cerf sat on the US National Science Board and is a Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cerf is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and Swedish Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, American Association for the advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, British Computer Society, Worshipful Companies of Information Technologists and Stationers and is a member of the National Academies of Engineering and Science. Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, the Legion d’Honneur and 29 honorary degrees.

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Dr. Alberto Montilla
(Board Member)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-alberto-montilla/
Alberto is a product executive and a space enthusiast. He is a Founding Board Member of SPATIAM CORPORATION, a business with the mission of creating the interplanetary Internet.
An IPNSIG member since 2014, Alberto has accumulated extensive experience in building new businesses around technology and products. He led product management at Cisco for 15 years and currently works as Director of Product Management at Twilio, the leading Cloud Communications Platform.
Alberto holds a Doctor of Networking Engineering degree from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and an MBA from the Instituto de Estudios Bursátiles. He is a technology advisor of early-stage startups and in his personal time, he enjoys family and friends, sports, and technology.

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Felix Flentge
(Board Member)

Felix Flentge is a software engineer in the Ground Segment Engineering and Innovation Department at ESA's Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. He is an expert in space communication protocols and architectures, such as the CCSDS File Delivery Protocol and Disruption Tolerant Networking. Felix is actively supporting and promoting these technologies across all space mission families - from Earth Observation up to interplanetary missions. He is managing a wide range of activities from operational implementation and deployment of communication protocols and systems, inter- agency DTN demonstration activities up to academic cooperation in the areas of real-time DTN services, bundle routing and bundle protocol extensions. Felix is actively contributing to standardization and international coordination in these areas at CCSDS, IOAG and various international working groups including the IPNSIG Architecture & Governance WG.

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Juan Fraire
(Board Member)

Juan Fraire is a researcher and professor at INRIA (France) and CONICET-UNC (Argentina) and a guest professor at Saarland University (Germany), where he teaches a unique course about space informatics. For more than 15 years, Juan has been investigating near-Earth and deep-space networking and informatics. He has published more than 70 papers in international journals and leading conferences and a book about Delay-Tolerant Satellite Networks co-authored with Scott Burleigh (former with JPL and an IPNSIG Board Member). Juan is the founder and chair of the Space-Terrestrial Internetworking Workshop (STINT), and he participates in diverse joint projects with space agencies (e.g., NASA, ESA, CONAE) and companies in the space sector (e.g., D3TN, Spatiam, Skyloom). Currently, Juan is the coordinator of a French national project called STEREO, where academic and industrial partners join efforts to develop a space-terrestrial integrated Internet of Things, with exciting prospects of realizing new interplanetary exploration concepts based on IoT.

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Keith Scott
(Board Member)

Dr. Keith Scott worked for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1997-1998, where he used ACTS mobile terminal data to characterize the effects of Ka-band satellite channels on TCP and SCPS-TP performance. Keith has worked on a number of projects for NASA and the DoD concerning communications in stressed environments including satellite and tactical data networks. He began working on the Interplanetary Internet in 1998, implemented a precursor to the current Bundle Protocol, and is co-author of RFC5050. Keith currently serves as chair of the Space Internetworking Systems Delay Tolerant Networking Working Group in the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems that is standardizing DTN protocols for use in civilian space missions. Keith is also a member of the Internet Research Task Force and Internet Engineering Task Force’s Delay Tolerant Networking working groups.

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