[CMC] US-DOD selects CCSDS "SCPS" Transport Protocol for MILSATCOM

[Adrian J. Hooke]

[An introductory note: this selection of the ISO/CCSDS "SCPS" Transport 
Protocol by the DOD marks the high point in a long road that began in 1991 
when we first started the job of extending the terrestrial Internet into 
space. Many thanks to all of you for your dedication, perseverance and 
technical excellence in designing, testing and internationally 
standardizing this high performance variant of TCP, which is now being 
operationally deployed in the DoD Teleport System -
http://www.disa.mil/ns/teleport/teleport.html  - a vital part of the Global 
Information Grid (GIG) architecture.

///Adrian Hooke]
++++++++++++++++

See:  http://64.241.27.103/npom/npom_news.html#News .  Quote:

"Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS) Approval

The Theater Joint Tactical Networks Configuration Control Board (TJTN-CCB) 
and Joint Staff have approved the Space Communications Protocol Standards - 
Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP) for Standardized Tactical Entry Point 
(STEP)/Teleport sites. SCPS-TP is one of several solutions to the 
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) over satellite problem. In dealing with 
this problem the services investigated and implemented several solutions. 
These solutions, however, were largely proprietary, so a need developed to 
investigate and determine the best solution. SCPS-TP was shown to be the 
most effective and interoperable solution for TCP enhancements, according 
to extensive Joint Terminal Engineering Office (JTEO) testing performed for 
the 2002 Network Protocols over MILSATCOM (NPoM) working group. The SCPS-TP 
protocol was tested at both the Joint User Interoperability Communications 
Exercise (JUICE) and the Department of Defense Interoperability 
Communications Exercise (DICE). During both exercises, the SCPS-TP protocol 
performed well and demonstrated both TCP traffic enhancement capability and 
interoperability with other TCP devices. As a result of these efforts, the 
TJTN-CCB voted to standardize an SCPS-TP-enabled device for the 
STEP/Teleport Program; therefore SCPS-TP enabled TCP accelerators will be 
installed at each STEP site beginning in Fall 2003.

In 1991, a joint effort began among the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration (NASA), the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and 
the Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) to develop an interoperable suite of 
end-to-end data protocols for satellite networks. Recognizing that there 
was a problem using TCP over high delay, high bit error rate links, a team 
of protocol engineers, drawn from the satellite community, started 
developing internet-over-satellite standards. This work resulted in the 
SCPS protocol suite, which not only is based on Internet protocols, but is 
also fully interoperable with Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards.

The SCPS consortium looked to establish the SCPS protocol suite as an 
international standard for the space networking community. The 
International Standards Organization (ISO), the Consultative Committee for 
Space Data Systems (CCSDS), and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) have 
adopted the SCPS protocol suite as a standard. The different organizations 
and their corresponding SCPS standards numbers are listed in Table 1.

The SCPS Standards:
	                                             CCSDS:      ISO:
SCPS File Protocol             MIL-STD-2045-47000   717.0-B    15894
SCPS Transport Protocol        MIL-STD-2045-44000   714.0-B    15893
SCPS Security Protocol         MIL-STD-2045-43001   713.5-B-1  15892
SCPS Network Protocol          MIL-STD-2045-43000   713.0-B    15891

Some vendors that have already implemented SCPS are: Comtech TurboIP, Lineo 
VPN Router w/ Skipware and the Xiphos XipLink Mini Gateway, with more on 
the way.

For further details on TCP enhancements over satellite, refer to the 
article in this publication entitled Transmission Control Protocol 
Enhancements Over MILSATCOM:

http://64.241.27.103/npom/npom_news.html#Tech

Source: Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems"