Interstellar Network Proxy May 2026

We aren’t starting from zero. NASA’s DTN stack has flown on the EPOXI mission and the ISS. The CSSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) has standardized Bundle Protocol version 7. The upcoming Lunar Gateway will host an early INP: a store-and-forward hub for lunar surface assets.

Commercial players like SpaceX and OneWeb are discussing “interplanetary proxies” for future Starlink-like constellations around Mars.

On Earth, a proxy is a simple middleman: it forwards requests, caches content, and filters traffic. An Interstellar Network Proxy does something far more radical. It is a store-and-forward, delay-tolerant, context-aware gateway placed at strategic points in the solar system—orbiting Mars, in orbit around Jupiter, or at Lagrange points. interstellar network proxy

The INP does not simply pass packets. It terminates Earth-bound protocols and translates them into Bundle Protocol (BP), the delay-/disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) standard designed for space.

In essence, the INP lies to time.

The most radical feature of the Interstellar Network Proxy is predictive caching.

Because light travel time is constant, the ISNP knows exactly when a request was sent relative to when a response can be received. This creates a predictable "latency lottery." We aren’t starting from zero

Consider a Martian astronaut browsing a "live" weather report on Earth. By the time the request reaches Earth, the weather report is 20 minutes old. The ISNP realizes this. Instead of sending the raw request, it intercepts it.

The Algorithm: The Earth-side ISNP subscribes to a firehose of Earth telemetry (weather, stock prices, news headlines). It time-stamps each datum with its Terrestrial Coordinated Time (TCT). When a Martian request arrives, the proxy calculates the age of the requested data. If the requested data is older than the current light-time delay, the proxy returns its cached copy immediately. If the user wants live data, the proxy holds the connection open, waits for the next Earth update, and bundles it. The upcoming Lunar Gateway will host an early

This turns the proxy into a time-machine interface. The user on Mars doesn't see a "loading" spinner for 40 minutes. They see a timestamp: "Data as of Earth Time: 14:32 UTC. Light-delay adjusted."