QUIC Profile for Deep Space
draft-many-tiptop-quic-profile-01

Internet Engineering Task Force                              M. Blanchet
Internet-Draft                                                  Viagenie
Intended status: Informational                            23 August 2025
Expires: 24 February 2026

                      QUIC Profile for Deep Space
                   draft-many-tiptop-quic-profile-01

Abstract

   Deep space communications involve long delays (e.g., Earth to Mars is
   4-20 minutes) and intermittent communications, because of orbital
   dynamics.  In this context, typical QUIC stacks default transport
   parameters for terrestrial Internet are not suitable for deep space.
   This document defines a QUIC profile for deep space.  It provides
   guidance on how to estimate and set transport parameters, advice to
   space mission operators and application developers on how to
   configure QUIC for the deep space use case and guidance to QUIC stack
   developers to properly expose the required transport parameters in
   their API.

Status of This Memo

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   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights

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   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Example Scenario  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  RTT Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Bandwidth-Delay Product(BDP) Calculation  . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Initial RTT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Idle Timeout  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Congestion Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.1.  Window Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     6.2.  Explicit Congestion Notification(ECN) . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  Flow Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     7.1.  Max Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8.  Path MTU discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   9.  Acknowledgement Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   10. Packet Size and Sending Pace  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   11. New connection IDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   12. FEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   13. Careful Resume  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   14. QUIC Proxies and Deployment Models  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   15. Moon Deployment Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   16. Intermittence Aware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   17. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   18. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   19. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     19.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     19.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

1.  Introduction

   Deep space communications involve long delays, such as Earth to Mars
   is 4-20 minutes, and intermittent communications, because of orbital
   dynamics, such as when an orbiter is passing over a rover every 6
   hours for a duration of 15 minutes.

   Typical QUIC stacks default transport parameters for terrestrial
   Internet assume low latency such as 100-200 ms, and relative
   continuous connectivity.  Therefore, parameters such as initial_rtt,
   maximum_idle_timeout have defaults typically not suitable for deep
   space.

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   Space missions are scheduled in advance and parameters such as the
   maximum round-trip time or bandwidth are known and determined in
   advance.  Given relative low bandwidth in space and the intermittent
   communications, bandwidth usage is very precious and therefore any
   unneeded communication should be minimized as much as possible.

   It should also be noted that packets will be stored at either layer 2
   or layer 3 by orbiters during the periods where connectivity to the
   next hop is not possible.

   The whole architecture and operation of IP in deep space is discussed
   in [I-D.many-deepspace-ip-assessment].

1.1.  Example Scenario

   To better illustrate the implication on various transport parameters,
   an example scenario is provided in this section.

   A rover on the Mars surface is connected to a Mars surface IP network
   which receives intermittent connectivity from a few orbiters with an
   average of 6 hours per orbit.  Some of those orbiters have circular
   orbits, other elleptical.  The latter means that the overpass are not
   at a fixed frequency.  The orbiters are connected to Earth ground
   station while they are in line of sight with Earth.  Earth and Mars
   have variable distance from 4 to 20 minutes light seconds.  That one
   way delay however change "slowly" as the planets are orbiting around
   the Sun.

1.2.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

2.  RTT Calculation

   A QUIC stack estimates the round-trip time(RTT) between the two peers
   over the period of the connection.  This is used for example to
   initiate the retransmission of packets when the acknowledgement of
   those packets is not received within the expected RTT.  Using the
   example in Section 1.1, it is necessary to prime the QUIC stack with
   the right initial values, to avoid, for example, to retransmit
   packets after 100 ms while the expected RTT is 2 hours.

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   A space application designer should calculate the maximum RTT for its
   mission.  Using the example in Section 1.1, the maximum RTT due to
   the maximum two-way delay is 45 minutes and the one due to the
   overpass frequency is 6 hours, therefore the maximum RTT is 6 hours
   45 minutes.

   A space application designer should calculate the minimum RTT for its
   mission.  Using the example in Section 1.1, the minimum RTT due to
   the minimum two-way delay is 8 minutes and the one due to the
   overpass frequency is 0 assuming direct line of sight for the whole
   path, therefore the minimum RTT is 8 minutes.

3.  Bandwidth-Delay Product(BDP) Calculation

   A QUIC stack like any transport stack manages the pacing of sending
   packets from the source to avoid overloading the network, creating
   congestion and to avoid overloading the other peer.

   A space application designer should calculate the bandwidth-delay
   product(BDP) of the whole path for its mission.  The minimum BDP
   should be calculated with the minimum RTT and the minimum bandwidth
   used during those times.  The maximum BDP should be calculated with
   the maximum RTT and the maximum bandwidth.

4.  Initial RTT

   To prime the QUIC stack with the expected RTT of the mission, an
   application should set the Initial RTT on connection establishment to
   the maximum RTT as calculated in Section 2.

   If the set RTT is too low, then retransmission will be sent before
   the actual acknowledgement was received.  In this case, the QUIC
   stack will still converge and deliver reliable data, but at the
   expense of extra bandwidth used.  If the set RTT is too high, then
   when a packet is lost, the retransmission will be started later than
   the optimal time, therefore the total time to transmit all the data,
   including the losses recovered, will be longer than if it was set
   properly, but the QUIC stack will still converge and deliver reliable
   data.

   The initial_rtt transport parameter is specified in [RFC9002].

   An application may use the resume mechanism as described in
   Section 13 to update the RTT during the connection lifetime.

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5.  Idle Timeout

   To avoid the QUIC stack to terminate a connection due to no activity
   from the other peer, an application should set the Idle Timeout on
   connection establishment to the maximum RTT as calculated in
   Section 2.

   If the set RTT is too low, then the other peer may terminate the
   connection before all the data is received.  In this case, the QUIC
   stack on the sender side will need to reestablish the connection,
   possibly using the 0RTT mechanism, and resend the data that was not
   acknowledged previously.  In this case, the application shall still
   recover and provide full data reliability but at the expense of more
   total time and extra bandwidth used.  If the set RTT is too high,
   then the other peer will close its side of the connection later than
   needed in the event of a lost connection.  In this case, the
   resources used by keeping the connection, such as memory, will not be
   released as fast as it could be if the RTT was properly set.

   The max_idle_timeout transport parameter is specified in section 8.2
   of [RFC9000].

6.  Congestion Control

   Congestion control(CC) in transport protocols is used to provide fair
   access to path bandwidth by avoiding congestion in the network, shown
   by increased latency or packet drops by intermediate nodes.  When
   such event is discovered, the sources pace down to decrease the
   bandwidth usage and recover congestion in the network.

   [I-D.many-deepspace-ip-assessment] discusses that given intermittent
   links in deep space because of orbital dynamics, intermediate nodes
   have to temporarily store either L2 frames or L3 packets when links
   are down until the link is up again.  This behavior will be
   interpreted by various CC algorithms as congestion, therefore pacing
   down the source.  However, this is not the right behavior, since it
   is on purpose that storing frames or packets is needed in deep space.

   Therefore, QUIC stacks should be configured to not react to those
   events and instead only manage flow control with the window size set
   by the application at connection establishment.

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6.1.  Window Size

   A QUIC stack manages the pacing of the source by the window size.  A
   typical value used for Internet is 2 times the BDP.  In space,
   careful considerations must be taken.  A too low BDP means that the
   source node may not be sending enough packets to completly use the
   network and the available bandwidth of the links, which is less
   optimal given the scarcity of communications in space.  Therefore, an
   application should not use a BDP lower than the minimum BDP as
   calculated in Section 3.  A too large BDP may use too much of the
   bandwidth of the links.

   Since packets may be stored at either layer 2 or layer 3 by
   intermediate nodes, the maximum storage of in-flight packets in these
   intermediary nodes is to be considered.  Therefore, space operations
   should properly identify the best window size based on the minimum
   and maximum BDP and storage size of the intermediary nodes for the
   mission/application.  As those parameters are known in advance for a
   mission, these can be set appropriately on connection establishment
   by the application.

6.2.  Explicit Congestion Notification(ECN)

   If a forwarder with buffering capabilities is expecting that its
   storage capacity may become full, then it may use network signaling
   to tell the sources to pace down.  In the case of deep space, the
   forwarders typically have knowledge of their various links, such as
   bandwdith and delay to the next hops.  They, or a network
   orchestrator, may also know about the contact plan on the various
   links.  Therefore, they are able to predict in advance the future
   usage of their storage given the current consumption rate, and can
   send the appropriate signal in advance so that it is received by the
   source to pace down in advance of a storage overflow.

   The Explicit Congestion Notification(ECN) [RFC3168],[RFC8311] is a
   proper mechanism for this purpose.  If it is set by the forwarder on
   the forwarded packets, then the sender QUIC stack, if configured to
   process ECN, reacts to this signal by pacing down, as discussed in
   [RFC9002].  Further discussion on the usefulness of ECN is discussed
   in [RFC8087]

7.  Flow Control

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7.1.  Max Data

   initial_max_data is the maximum number of bytes that can be sent on a
   connection [RFC9000]. initial_max_stream_data is similar but per
   stream.  Given the BDP of a typical deep space connection,
   applications should set these parameters to enough large values so
   that the source is capable of sending data while the bandwidth is
   available.

   The various initial_max_data transport parameters are specified in
   section 8.2 of [RFC9000].

8.  Path MTU discovery

   To find the optimum MTU, some QUIC stacks implement Path MTU
   discovery[RFC8899], which sends bigger packets every time until it
   discovers the maximum MTU, which may involve packet loss.  Given that
   in deep space, all links MTU of the paths are known in advance and
   that probing is less optimal, the application developer may elect to
   disable the path MTU discovery mechanism and set the real path MTU on
   connection establishment of the application.

9.  Acknowledgement Frequency

   QUIC stacks have various mechanisms to trigger acknowledgements, as
   described in [RFC9000], [I-D.ietf-quic-ack-frequency].  There are
   advantages of sending "frequent" acknowledgements, such as the source
   can free out memory of received frames earlier.  However, it may use
   more bandwidth.  Applications should set the acknowledgement
   frequency on connection establishment based on their requirements.

   The max_ack_delay and ack_delay_exponent transport parameters are
   specified in section 8.2 of [RFC9000].

10.  Packet Size and Sending Pace

   There are pros and cons of sending large packets.  Sending smaller
   packets means using more bandwidth because of multiple headers,
   unless header compression is used, but decreases the probability of
   packet loss which in space should be minimized.  Sending larger
   packets means more efficient use of bandwidth, but in front of
   significant packet loss, may in fact result in using more bandwidth
   than smaller packets, since they will have to be re-transmitted.

   In the context of Internet, QUIC stacks may elect to not wait much
   time in order to add more frames in a single packets to deliver
   faster to the receiving end point.

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   For deep space applications, where time for transmission is many
   orders of magnitude longer than on Internet, a QUIC stack may be
   configured to wait "a bit more" to add more frames to a single
   packet.  For example, before sending a packet, a QUIC stack may wait
   to process all incoming packets in case the latter may elect to add
   frames on the response packet.

11.  New connection IDs

   QUIC stacks typically preemptively send new connection IDs to the
   other peer, for future needs such as future connection migration.
   However, those use cases may not be happening often in deep space.
   That optional optimization of sending new connection IDs may not be
   needed for deep space use case, while the actual cost of these
   additional bytes is pretty low.

12.  FEC

   CCSDS deep space links uses FEC at layer 2 (TODO: add ref to CCSDS
   book), using a pipeline of codecs, enabling low frame error rate in
   the presence of a higher signal bit error rate.  While FEC for QUIC
   has been defined [I-D.michel-quic-fec], it remains to be seen if it
   is really needed for deep space.

13.  Careful Resume

   TBD.  [I-D.ietf-tsvwg-careful-resume]

14.  QUIC Proxies and Deployment Models

   TBD. proxies at space edge

15.  Moon Deployment Considerations

   Earth to Moon is just a few light seconds away.  When the whole path
   is all line of sight, it is possible to use QUIC stacks as configured
   today, but it will take more time to converge, therefore less
   optimal.  The BBR algorithm will be a better choice as it is based on
   delay to measure congestion.

   However, if one wants to consider orbiters that will have
   intermittent communications, then the scenario discussed in
   Section 1.1 also applies and calculating RTT and BDP as discussed
   previously apply.

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16.  Intermittence Aware

   Another way to solve the generic problem is to make transport aware
   of the intermittence periods, so that when there is a direct path
   end-to-end without any intermittence, the normal QUIC behavior such
   as congestion control may be used with proper RTT configuration, and
   then a different behavior in the context of intermittence.  However,
   the actual scheduling of communication windows is pretty complicated
   and have a lot of variations that an intermittence-aware transport
   will be very fragile.

17.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.

18.  Security Considerations

   TBD

19.  References

19.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

19.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
              RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.

   [RFC8087]  Fairhurst, G. and M. Welzl, "The Benefits of Using
              Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)", RFC 8087,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8087, March 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8087>.

   [RFC8311]  Black, D., "Relaxing Restrictions on Explicit Congestion
              Notification (ECN) Experimentation", RFC 8311,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8311, January 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8311>.

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   [RFC8899]  Fairhurst, G., Jones, T., Tüxen, M., Rüngeler, I., and T.
              Völker, "Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery for
              Datagram Transports", RFC 8899, DOI 10.17487/RFC8899,
              September 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8899>.

   [RFC9000]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9000>.

   [RFC9002]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and I. Swett, Ed., "QUIC Loss Detection
              and Congestion Control", RFC 9002, DOI 10.17487/RFC9002,
              May 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9002>.

   [I-D.michel-quic-fec]
              Michel, F. and O. Bonaventure, "Forward Erasure Correction
              for QUIC loss recovery", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-michel-quic-fec-01, 23 October 2023,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-michel-quic-
              fec-01>.

   [I-D.ietf-tsvwg-careful-resume]
              Kuhn, N., Stephan, E., Fairhurst, G., Secchi, R., and C.
              Huitema, "Convergence of Congestion Control from Retained
              State", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              tsvwg-careful-resume-21, 12 August 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-tsvwg-
              careful-resume-21>.

   [I-D.ietf-quic-ack-frequency]
              Iyengar, J., Swett, I., and M. Kühlewind, "QUIC
              Acknowledgment Frequency", Work in Progress, Internet-
              Draft, draft-ietf-quic-ack-frequency-11, 28 February 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-
              ack-frequency-11>.

   [I-D.many-deepspace-ip-assessment]
              Blanchet, M., Huitema, C., and D. Bogdanović, "Revisiting
              the Use of the IP Protocol Stack in Deep Space: Assessment
              and Possible Solutions", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-many-deepspace-ip-assessment-02, 10 September 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-many-
              deepspace-ip-assessment-02>.

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Acknowledgements

   This document and its underlying work has been reviewed and discussed
   by many, who have provided valuable feedback and comments, including
   disagreements, and made an overall more solid document.  These people
   are, in no specific order: Lars Eggert, Christian Huitema, Adolfo
   Ochagavia, Mirja Kuehlewind.

   The Quinn QUIC stack was used for testing.  We would like to
   acknowledge the help of Benjamin Saunders and Adolfo Ochagavia in
   using Quinn.

Author's Address

   Marc Blanchet
   Viagenie
   Canada
   Email: marc.blanchet@viagenie.ca

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