The U.S. military plans to test an Internet router in space, in a project that also could benefit civilian broadband satellite communications.

Cisco and Intelsat General, a subsidiary of Intelsat, are among the companies selected by the U.S. Department of Defense for its Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to deliver military communications through a satellite-based router.

Potential nonmilitary benefits of the IRIS program include the ability to route IP traffic between satellites in space in much the same way packets are moved on the ground, reducing delays, saving on capacity and offering greater networking flexibility, Lloyd Wood, space initiatives manager in the Global Defense, Space & Security division of Cisco, said Thursday.

To send a message from one remote terminal to another via satellite today requires the first terminal to send the data to the satellite, from where it is bounced back to an earth station for routing. The earth station retransmits it to the satellite on a different frequency, selected depending on its destination, and the satellite bounces it back to its destination. With the router in space, the satellite can pick the channel used to send the message to its destination. By eliminating the message's round trip to the earth station, operators can increase satellite capacity and reduce transmission times between remote terminals by using fewer hops and fewer frequencies for each message.

For the IRIS program, satellite operator Intelsat will manage the three-year project, with Cisco will provide IP networking software for the on-board router.

After testing, the technology will be available for commercial use.

Although satellites have been passively relaying IP traffic since the 1970s, the use of an orbiting satellite as an active part of the Internet is a more recent development, according to Wood.

Traditionally, communication signals that come up to a satellite in either the C-band or the Ku-band, go down in the same band, he said. They require separate transponders that don't communicate with each other.

Internet routing technology being tested in the IRIS project will enable this communication by "decoding what comes up in the C-band or Ku-band and interconnecting the two," said Wood.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.