Sailing the Cosmic Seas: Improving Dependability in IoT-Based Deep Space Exploration

As humanity takes its next giant leap in the pursuit of becoming a multi-planetary species, we must develop new foundational communication technologies to facilitate space exploration. To truly scale space exploration missions, the dollar cost must drastically decrease. To that end, planetary telemetry data can be gathered using large-scale, low-cost, and resourceconstrained direct-to-satellite IoT (DtS-IoT) deployments. The IoT devices continuously sense and transmit data to orbiting small satellites and nanosatellites. Utilizing the delay and disruption tolerant networking (DTN) paradigm, these satellites can route data to Earth through inter-satellite links and the interplanetary network. Analysis of this data will enable the development of colonization feasibility models for different planets. We propose creating software-based optimizations to improve the dependability of IoT-based space exploration missions. By targeting lifetime, resource constraints, and reliability, these optimizations aim to reduce the annual cost of operation, enabling massively scaled and economically feasible exploration. This work contributes to the future Solar System Internet, interconnecting humans across planets, natural satellites, and spacecraft.