| | IPN project funded by NASA in collaboration with DARPA, is supporting a team of scients at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Houston, Texas. The objective behind the IPN project is to build an architecture for a future inter-planetary internet by setting nodes across the solar system for connecting the Internet on Earth with the internet of other planets and spacecraft. IPN is to be used for deep-space data communications between earth, Mars and other planets. The basic components of IPN are NASA's Deep Space Network ( an international network of antennas to continuously track data and control navigation of spacecrafts), a six micro-satellite constellation around Mars, and the appropiate protocols. Challenges facing IPN include reducing delay in data transmission, figuring out the protocols, satellite maintenance, availability of domain names, and security from hackers. A link to Mars is planned by 2008. |

