Aalyria, an advanced aerospace communications company whose products are critical to the next generation of space-based communications systems, has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency to develop and deliver a new Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) Network Operations Centre, offering standards-based DTN transit and management services to ground station operators so they can provide DTN connectivity commercially without the heavy investment required to build bespoke systems of their own.

The contract supports space agencies’ desires to move towards a more network-centric operations model building on interoperable communications architectures that span the Earth, the Moon, Mars and deep space. Aalyria is partnering with Goonhilly Earth Station, which operates the world’s first privately owned deep space communications antenna. The product will be deployed at Goonhilly’s Cornwall ground station, where it will be qualified for commercial deep space operations.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connected the world. DTN will connect the Solar System. The terrestrial internet was engineered on the principles of continuous connectivity, low latency and bidirectional paths available on demand. A connected Solar System runs on different principles entirely. Data exchanged with assets at lunar distance faces signal delays of nearly three seconds round trip. On Mars, those delays can exceed 20 minutes. Contact windows between spacecraft and ground stations open and close based on orbital mechanics, not on schedule. Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networking addresses this at the protocol level. Rather than requiring an end-to-end path before transmission begins, DTN stores data at each node and forwards it when the next link becomes available. Delivery is assured regardless of whether the complete route exists at the time of transmission.

The project aims to blur the lines between ground and space assets and is equivalent to the terrestrial Internet: open standards and interoperable protocols that let any mission, from any agency or commercial operator, communicate without each one building its own point-to-point network. Aalyria’s DTN NOC will provide the ground infrastructure for that layer, built for interoperability with LunaNet, the lunar connectivity framework under joint development by NASA, ESA, JAXA and commercial partners including Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space, Viasat and Intuitive Machines, a space infrastructure company.

Demand for operational DTN ground infrastructure is no longer prospective: Artemis is returning crews to cislunar space, and commercial operators are already establishing a presence on the lunar surface.

“The space economy is at the same inflection point the internet reached in the early 1990s, when the infrastructure decisions being made would determine how everything built on top of it would work. DTN is the networking protocol on which interoperable deep space communications will be standardised – the same architectural role TCP/IP holds on Earth. Exchanging data reliably across cislunar and deep space distances requires a fundamentally different approach to networking. The DTN NOC we are building with ESA is the operational infrastructure that makes that approach viable at scale for government and commercial missions alike,” said Brian Barritt, CEO, Aalyria.

“The Solar System Internet is a network-of-networks interconnecting space and ground infrastructures to provide standardised, interoperable, delay- and disruption-tolerant communication and navigation services. This will allow space agencies and, increasingly, commercial operators to communicate across the Solar System using shared infrastructure rather than isolated, mission-specific systems. DTN is the networking layer beneath that architecture. Ground-based NOC capability is what makes it operational. Aalyria’s technical depth in DTN, combined with Goonhilly’s deep space infrastructure, gives this partnership the capabilities the Solar System Internet requires,” said Felix Flentge, Software Engineer, ESA Directorate of Operations.