PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet.
Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth.

"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," said Adrian Hooke, team lead and manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve Bowen completed the first of four spacewalks scheduled for Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station today. The spacewalk was the 115th in support of ISS construction.

Piper and Bowen began the spacewalk at 12:09 p.m. CST and ended it at 7:01 p.m. They spent six hours and 52 minutes outside the station working on several tasks, including removing a depleted nitrogen tank from a stowage platform on the outside of the complex and moving it into Endeavour's cargo bay. They also moved a flex hose rotary coupler from the shuttle to the station stowage platform, as well as removing some insulation blankets from the common berthing mechanism on the Kibo laboratory.