Email Gatewaying Across Delay Tolerant Networks

Project Sponsor: NASA JPL

Project Managers and Primary Project Contact:

Leigh Torgeson

Description

This project, developed in collaboration with NASA JPL, aims to build a functional interplanetary email system by leveraging Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) through NASA’s Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION) software. Traditional internet protocols like TCP/IP and SMTP rely on continuous, low-latency connections—conditions that are unrealistic in the high-latency, disruption-prone environment of space. By adapting standard email infrastructure to operate over DTN, this project enables resilient communication between celestial bodies, using store-and-forward techniques to handle long delays and intermittent connectivity.

A testbed of Raspberry Pis simulates the planetary networking environment, with separate nodes representing Earth and Mars, connected through a central relay node that mimics deep space transmission. Each Pi runs services like Postfix, Exim, Dovecot, and BIND9 to support standard email and DNS workflows, while Linux Traffic Control is used to simulate space-like conditions including delay, bandwidth limitations, and packet loss. While Batch SMTP was explored during the research phase for its potential benefits, the actual implementation focuses on using conventional email systems adapted for DTN via ION. The goal is to validate a system that can reliably support interplanetary email and lay the groundwork for future space communication infrastructure.

Objective

The objective our project aims to achieve is to develop a software to conduct Email Server to Email Server Operations between celestial bodies and ensure code is interoperable with other email implementations in order to improve accessibility  and implementation for other email services 

Team Layout