DARPA Funds Development on Modular Satellite Network

coondoggie points out a Networkworld story about plans for modular satellite technology which is intended to replace modern, "monolithic" devices. The project hopes to solve issues of scalability and reliability by separating the typical satellite systems and allowing the different modules to change function when necessary. Quoting: "According to DARPA such a virtual satellite effectively constitutes a "bus in the sky" - wherein customers need only provide and deploy a payload module suited to their immediate mission need, with the supporting features supplied by a global network of infrastructure modules already resident on-orbit and at critical ground locations. In addition, there can be sharing of resources between various "spacecraft" that are within sufficient range for communication. DARPA said ... within the F6 network all subsystems and payloads can be treated like a uniquely addressable computing peripheral or network device. Such an approach can provide a long sought after "plug-n-play" capability, according to the agency."

The F6 network, huh...

[palegray.net]

Personally, I prefer the F5 network. It really runs well.

Eeek!

[Anonymous Coward]

Buzzword overload! I must do a "system reset."

Re:better analogy

[i_liek_turtles]

A bus in the sky?

It's just a really big car.

Cluster networking

[n3tcat]

So after reading this, I had the random thought of cluster networking and whatnot, and it made me wonder if the satellites would ever have any spare CPU cycles. If so, I wonder if they handle helping some of the @home projects (folding, seti, etc).

Re:Sounds like it has been done before.

[ByteSlicer]

Yes, and we'll name it SkyNet...

Tanenbaum was right!

[Cyberax]

Linux monolithic kernel is obso....

Errr...

As a pacifist

[edittard]

As a pacifist I object to using military technology (defence? hah!), as it glorifies the purveyors of death and violence and gives a veneer of respectabilty to the military industrial complex.

So I'll just stick with the plain old internet, thanks.