Preliminary results of a technology demonstration of the internet routing in space capability over a geostationary communications satellite

The Internet Protocol Routing in Space (IRIS) was developed by an industry group, under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense1 as a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD). The primary goal of the IRIS JCTD is to assess the network capability and operational utility of an IP router in space. This paper discusses the results obtained from laboratory and field tests which were specifically designed to evaluate the functionality and performance. Most of the results were obtained during a recent demonstration using 3 ground terminals operating with the IRIS payload on-board INTELSAT-14 (IS-14). Emphasis is given to application and network performance resulting from the end-to-end Quality of Service and Bandwidth on Demand capabilities of IRIS.