Columbus does it again
Defying previous attempts, the first commercial Ethernet switch has been sent off in space successfully. Now 400km above Earth onboard the Columbus module research laboratory, the switch will create part of a half duplex 10Mbps local area network, sustained on the International Space Station (ISS). Up until now, a mixture of IT technology decades old was used.
Cisco, D-Link, Avaya, 3Com, NetGear, and Hewlett Packard switches underwent similar conditions before, but were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. This time HP's ProCurve 2524 switch (which holds a 10 year lifespan) succeeded. In the dev, configuration and qualifications cycles for three years, HP says it was the "most unusual and demanding" project Procurve has endeavoured.
"It proved much more advantageous to us [that the switch] used fewer chips on the circuit board, as the fewer components present, the lower the susceptibility to radiation and mechanical duress during the launch into space," said EADS Astrium Space Transportation Columbus Data Management System Engineer, Rolf Schmidhuber.
Well, now you know what brand to upgrade to, hey?
Good to know we'll all have quality Internet when we pack our bags for the moon (well, the rich people anyway), though I wonder if games like Eve Online would have more or less allure.
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