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DTN Store-and-Forward Relay Simulator

Interactive delay/disruption-tolerant networking simulator: watch a data bundle hop Rover to Orbiter to Earth across intermittent line-of-sight links, comparing naive TCP/IP-style continuous connections that restart from scratch against DTN store-and-forward bundling that holds data in local storage until the next hop opens.

Space & Astronomy3DAdvanced60 FPS🌍 Earth

Details

CategorySpace & Astronomy

RenderingThree.js · WebGL

DifficultyAdvanced

Target FPS60

ControlsOrbiter speed slider controls how fast the relay orbits Mars (shorter/longer visibility windows); rover longitude slider repositions the rover on the planet, shifting when its link to the orbiter is in view; bundle size slider scales how long each hop takes once its link is up; Running/Paused toggle freezes the simulation; Reset stats clears both modes' counters and restarts both transfer attempts.

Three.jsDTNdelay-tolerant networkingstore-and-forwardbundle protocolinterplanetary internet

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Deep-space links break the assumptions ordinary internet protocols depend on: round trips take minutes to hours, and every hop in the chain — rover to orbiter, orbiter to Earth — has its own line-of-sight window that opens and closes on its own schedule. This simulator drives a Mars rover, a Mars orbiter and an Earth ground station through exactly that pattern, then runs two delivery strategies side by side over the same physical link schedule: a naive continuous-connection attempt that restarts from scratch the instant any hop drops, and a delay/disruption-tolerant bundle that is held in storage at whichever node it has reached until the next hop opens, then forwarded — never losing progress already made. Watch the live visibility timeline and the two progress bars to see why store-and-forward is what actually gets data home reliably across a disrupted space network.

⚙ Under the hood

Interactive delay/disruption-tolerant networking simulator: a data bundle hops Rover to Orbiter to Earth across intermittent line-of-sight links, comparing a naive TCP/IP-style continuous connection that restarts from scratch on every disruption against DTN store-and-forward bundling that holds the bundle in storage until the next hop opens.

Three.jsDTNdelay-tolerant networkingstore-and-forwardbundle protocolinterplanetary internet

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install