Network
There is no joystick for a fleet like this. Light itself takes minutes to Mars and hours to Neptune, so control must live where the action is, and the data must find its own way home. This page computes today's real light lags, watches for the Sun blocking the line, and lays out who decides what.
Light lag, live
Distances computed for today's actual planet positions. The verdict column says what kind of control the lag allows; everything slower than conversation runs on the autonomy ladder below.
| System | Distance now | One-way light time | Round trip | Sun in the way? | Control verdict |
|---|
The data road home
Laser trunk links thin with the square of distance, the same as sunlight. Each system's swarm makes far more data than the trunk can carry, which is why the edge AI sends only the interesting tenth and the mesh queues the rest.
| System | Satellites | Data made / day | Trunk capacity / day | Flow |
|---|
The control ladder
1 · Reflex
Milliseconds, onboard. The satellite's own edge AI dodges debris, points instruments at a sudden plume, keeps itself alive. Nobody is asked.
2 · Swarm vote
Seconds to minutes, over the local radio mesh. The picket votes on a new formation or a chase, the way the flown Starling swarm demonstrated. Consensus, not command.
3 · System plan
Hours, at the system relay hub. Weekly observing plans, convoy arrivals, cross-picket coordination for a whole planetary system.
4 · Policy
Days, from Earth. Humans set priorities and budgets rather than steering spacecraft by hand. Commands travel signed, with keys exchanged on the tamper-proof quantum channel.
The relay architecture
Trunk and side doors
The main road is laser: tight beams from each system hub to Earth's receiving telescopes, the technology the DSOC experiment proved across hundreds of millions of kilometres. But once each synodic year most systems pass behind the Sun, and the beam is blown out by our own star. The fix is geometry: relay stations riding 60° ahead of and behind Earth, on the same L4 and L5 ledges you can stand on in the gravity lab, keeping a bent path around the glare on hand. The conjunction column above shows who needs the side door today.
Store and forward
When no path is open at all, nothing is lost. Every satellite and hub holds its mail and passes it on when a link returns: delay-tolerant networking, the interplanetary internet model proven on the space station. Retired convoy tugs take up posts as extra letterboxes. The network runs slower than Earth's, and keeps running.