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2004 NEWS AND HIGHLIGHTS
08.25.04 - Networking Group Enables VoIP Telephone Call from International Space Station to the Arctic
The NAS networking group provided IP telephone equipment, firewall reconfiguration, and wide-area networking connectivity to enable a science officer onboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) to call scientists at the Haughton Crater on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. Colleagues Mike Fincke on the ISS, and NASA Ames Brian Glass in the Arctic chatted about activities in their respective locations, including the science being conducted on Devon Island, an upcoming spacewalk, and training plans for a future Mars mission. They enjoyed voice quality approximately equivalent to that of an analog cell phone call. The network path followed by the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call was: ISS to the White Sands ground station via the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), to NASA Johnson, to NASA Ames, to the international peering facility at Chicago via the NASA Research and Education Network (NREN) testbed, to the Communications Research Centre in Canada via CA*Net 4, and finally to Devon Island via a second satellite link.
Internet phone technology (VoIP) enables telephone calls to be transported on the same lines that carry Internet traffic. This makes VoIP ideal for use in remote locations that are not serviced by traditional telephone systems. The NAS Networking Group has successfully used VoIP to support multiple field experiments in the remote Utah desert, enabling scientists and engineers to teleconference with management back home, to troubleshoot problems, or to adjust field plans in response to unexpected events. These calls to support field activities are carried over the same satellite link that connects the remote field site back to the NREN WAN testbed.
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NEWS ARCHIVE
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