[arin-ppml] Addressing for other planets

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 5:02 AM Tony Li <tony.li at tony.li> wrote:
> As part of the IETF TIPTOP working group, we are working towards enabling the Internet in outer space.  We would like to direct your attention to a couple of recent Internet drafts that may be of interest:
>
> An Architecture for IP in Deep Space
> datatracker.ietf.org
> IP Address Space for Outer Space
> datatracker.ietf.org
>
> The latter has direct implications for the ARIN community,
>
> I would welcome any and all comments.

"To enable aggregation around celestial bodies, we would then like to
have a prefix per celestial body."

Hi Tony,

Are you the same Tony Li I worked with in the IRTF Routing Research
Group (RRG) years ago?

I watched the TIPTOP presentation at APRICOT a couple weeks ago. It
sounded like the idea is to hew as closely as practical to the
existing protocol standards and practices that we have now, rather
than invent an interplanetary-specific network stack. Relax the timers
and change the buffering expectations. Is that about right?

I guess my main question is: what's different about interplanetary
network links that would allow geographic address aggregation to align
with the routing? I thought we pretty clearly established in the RRG
that geographic routing in terrestrial interdomain networks was a
non-starter.

Folks running expensive long haul links like to be paid. They choose
protocols which restrict the introduction of data packets to addresses
operated by networks who have directly or indirectly compensated them.
We know with the transatlantic and other oceanic routes that this
selection does not follow large geographic boundaries closely enough
to benefit from geographic address aggregation. Why would it follow
large spatial ones?


Taking my Bill Herrin hat off and putting my Advisory Council hat on:

If you want to achieve something like this at ARIN, at some point you
would write and submit a number policy proposal which does three
things:

1. Establishes criteria in the ARIN NRPM where IP addresses deployed
in outer space are considered in use for the purpose of ARIN
determining an organization's use and qualification.

2. Establishes pools of IPv4 addresses reserved for each of the
specific celestial bodies, and the quantity reserved for each.

3. Establishes pools of IPv6 addresses reserved for each of the
specific celestial bodies, and the quantity reserved for each.

Finally, you'd specify that implementation would pend a request from
IANA pursuant to publication of the relevant TIPTOP RFC.


Once the policy proposal is submitted, it goes through a bunch of
steps, for which the main one is presenting it to the community and
gathering their consent. That means discussing it here on the PPML and
at ARIN in-person meetings and gathering feedback.

I think I would consider splitting it into three proposals since
you're really asking the community for three related but different
things: permission for ARIN to act as a registrar for outer space,
permission to reserve blocks of IPv4 addresses which then cannot be
used for another purpose and permission to reserve blocks of IPv6
addresses which then cannot be used for other purposes. That way you
could get some separation of fate between whether the ARIN community
is willing to have its fees support space allocations and whether
they're willing to tie up IP addresses for it ahead of those
addresses' use.

And I would definitely suggest more informal discussion like this one
to help develop such a proposal before formally submitting it.

You can find the template here:
https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/pdp/appendix_b/

Regards,
Bill Herrin