A few of you may remember, back in July 1969, what was then be most famous, and furthest, Long distance phone call ever made. As for the rest of you, you are now Googling of phones even existed that long ago!
I can assure you that they did, and on July 20, 1969, then President Nixon spoke with crew members Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin via telephone-radio transmission, with the President in the Oval Office and the Apollo XI astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin while they were on the surface of the Moon.
Of course, that call originated on landline circuits, that is upconverted to a satellite link and then beamed into outer space on the Goldstone Deep Space Network. In many ways, this radio transmission is capable of voice and data, similar to any terrestrial based radio transmission. We’ve modern advances in communications, just like we have Wi-Fi here on the surface, the International Space Station (ISS) is also connected.
The magic of VoIP allows any IP-based telephone to exist no matter where the connectivity is coming from. That being said, it was really no amazing feat to put an IP phone inside the IIS, which apparently was done a few years ago. Unfortunately, IP phones don’t live on their own, they need to register and connect with a call server that provides trunk resources to the outside world. Once again, our space based VoIP phone follows this same rule, and is connected to an IP telephony system inside NASA headquarters.
As many people do, when calling international numbers people forget to dial the zero in the 011 International prefix. On the ISS phone, one of the astronauts recently dialed ‘9’ for an outside line, forgot the ‘0’, and then dialed ‘1 1’ followed by an international number. Of course, being a KARI’S LAW compliant telephone system, as soon as the system processed 911, the call was sent to public safety triggering internal alarms along the way.
Fortunately, everyone realized it was just an accident, and there was no emergency launch of a police cruiser to intercept the IIS in orbit! So what’s the lesson learned? 911 needs to work everywhere, including “up there”! But, it might be a good time to put in a Little missile prevention programming J
The World According to Fletch . . . 