Executive Summary A joint network centric demonstration is currently underway, with participation from a consortium consisting of: NASA GRC, the Air Force and Army Space Battle Labs, NASA GSFC, Cisco, Western DataCom, Surrey Satellite Technologies Limited, General Dynamics, and Universal Space Networks. This demonstration will highlight the flight of a COTS network device (a miniature router) aboard an experimental micro-satellite that is controlled remotely using an Internet Protocol-based satellite command and control application that provides secure, virtual mission operations. The new architecture, showcased through this demonstration, is intended to meet the security, survivability, and rapid re- configuration requirements typically found in a complex research or battlefield environment. The results of this demonstration are intended to be used by those designing and fielding future integrated land, sea, air, and space core network elements. In addition, the output of this experiment and demonstrations will help the Transformational Communications Office to define the next-generation, joint NASA and DOD communications architecture. Satellites are typically custom built and require a number of proprietary interfaces and non-commercial standard protocols. Each satellite consists of a primary bus, surrounded by one or more instruments, all of which are provided by different vendors. Because each satellite bus and each instrument is unique and because the systems where not designed to be networked using commercial standards, integration, test and verification is extremely time consuming, expensive and often does not occur until the physical integration of the system. Thus, integrated testing usually occurs when it is too late to make wholesale design changes without affecting schedule. Problems uncovered late in a program can be extremely expensive to correct and usually result in significant launch delays. The number of personnel and the length of their project tenure are often the only variables that can be meaningfully impacted when attempting to reduce overall mission life cycle costs. Anything that can meaningfully reduce the length of time that the “standing army” is required can have a tremendous impact on the total satellite life cycle cost. According to NASA sponsored studies, the use of common IP interfaces has the potential to dramatically reduce the total time required to design, build, test, and validate spacecraft – conservatively reducing costs by a minimum of 25%. Finally, the use of COTS IP interfaces can also impact the cost of ground station design and operations. “Transformational Communications Architecture” or “TCA”, it is expected to offer seamless interoperability between terrestrial (land, sea, and air) and satellite- based systems by utilizing COTS IP across all domains. DoD and NASA have determined that the key technologies that need to be developed include: space tolerant network device designs, “virtual” satellite operations concepts, and integrated information assurance concepts. The following technologies are being worked in support of this. Cisco is developing small, low-power network devices that can be deployed in space-based environments. For missions requiring IP-compliant devices that operate at 100 mega bits per second (Mbps) or less, Cisco has developed a fully featured, miniature router. It is relatively small (2 cards, PC-104 form factor, roughly 4” on a side), lightweight, and consumes 10 Watts of power. The use of IP onboard spacecraft allows the use of completely new operations models. NASA GRC and General Dynamics are working together to develop a Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC). The VMOC is a secure application for the remote command and control and coordination of a variety of assets including space craft, land, sea and air platforms, ground stations, data mining and data retrieval and bandwidth management. General Dynamic’s initiative, provides a framework for mission partners to define, test, validate, and field an IP-based command and control system capable of supporting secure, distributed mission operations of any IP-based platform or sensor. Central to their concept is the Virtual Mission Operations Center or VMOC which performs a number of functions: 1) Enables system operators and data users to be remote. 2) Verifies individual users and their authorizations. 3) Establishes a secure user session with the platform. 4) Performs user / command prioritization and contention control. 5) Applies mission rules and performs command appropriateness tests. 6) Relays data directly to the remote user without human intervention. 7) Provides a knowledge data base and is designed to allow interaction with other, similar systems. 8) Provides an encrypted gateway for “unsophisticated” user access (remote users of science data). The consortium are conducting the first end-to-end demonstration of a COTS network device (a router) coupled with a virtual mission operations application in a space flight experiment utilizing a variety of ground stations and associated networks. The demonstration hopes to accomplish three primary goals: 1) Fly in space and compile operations data on a Cisco 3251 router; 2) Conduct the first secure, survivable, “virtual” mission operations of an element in space; 3) Conduct the first secure, mobile retrieval of data from a sophisticated space- based system by a remote, mobile user. SSTL is currently flying a Cisco 3251 router as an experiment aboard the United Kingdom’s Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite (DMC-UK). The satellite is fully IP compliant. In addition, the satellite is designed for a five year life, weighs100 kg and is in a 98 degree inclination sun synchronous orbit at 686 km. It has two multi-spectral imagers and can transmit a 8 Mbps while receiving at 9.6 kbps. Both uplink and downlink are at S band. The main ground station is located in Guildford, England at SSTL’s facilities. Additional ground stations are being planed for Colorado Springs and Alaska. The Colorado Springs facility would be operated by Army Battle Labs and dedicated to this demonstration. The third ground station would be located in Alaska and operated by Universal Space Networks. Thus coordination of ground assets from three different entities will have to occur within the VMOC. This demonstration is being closely monitored by numerous Government agencies including Office of Secretary of Defence, both DoD and Airforce CIOs, 14th Airforce, Space and Missile command, US Army Space and Missile Command, US Airforce Space Battlelab, National Reconnaissance Office, the National Security Agency and others.