Characteristics of TCP in IPN Environment

Nowadays, space missions display communication needs shifting away from the pure telecommunication standpoint. Present (Martian exploration, formation flying) and future (Moon, inhabited flights to Mars) missions give clear indications that the era of space networks in its widest sense is dawning. Interplanetary Internet (IPN) was proposed to define the architecture and protocols necessary to permit interoperation of the Internets resident on Earth with other remotely located internets resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit. InterPlanetary Networks are particularly challenging, considering that connectivity between nodes is usually transient due to orbital movements and planet rotations. In this article, we explore some shared traits of the mobile and space environments (Propagation Delays, Asymmetric Channels, Transmission Errors, Bandwidth-Delay Products, Intermittent Connectivity, and Limited Link Capacity) and their specific impact on the TCP Protocol. We studied TCP characteristics over Deep Space Communication, and present a comprehensive performance analysis of various TCP variant over IPN Environment