Internet Routing in Space

Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) was a program to build a radiation-tolerant IP router created by Cisco Systems for satellite and related spacecraft.

The United States Department of Defense used the JCTD to evaluate the reduced latency, improved throughput and increased flexibility provided by the Space Router.

[2] The Space Router provided the ability to route Internet Protocol computer network traffic on board the satellite, which enabled users of Web, VoIP, and other IP applications to directly communicate without having to double-hop data to and from an intermediate Earth station.

The ability to avoid the double-hop to the Earth station can reduce latency, which is approximately 250 ms for GEO satellites.

Routing IP traffic natively on the satellite with the router's built-in Cisco IOS Software and onboard software-defined radio can increase throughput, reduce latency, and enable flexible bandwidth-on-demand real-time applications between users in different geographic regions that do not have easy access to fiber networks.