State-of-the-Art of Transmission Protocols for Deep Space Communication Networks

With the development of space science and technologies the exploration of the deep space has become the most important and direct way of exploring the unidentified planets or space resources. The data gathered by the equipment of deep space exploration need to be sent back to the Earth exactly, and the network is in a reliable manner. The transmission protocol of the deep space communication network is by far one of the most challenging research fields, for example, long propagation, high BER (Bit Error Rate), intermittent connectivity and bandwidth asymmetry are four main difficulties. This paper will discussed the structure of the deep space communication network firstly, then analyse the transmission protocols of the deep space communication networks, finally sum up the key technologies of the transmission protocol of the deep space communication networks, such as hop by hop transport model, DTN etc., which may lay a foundation of its future.