HydRON: Internet backbone beyond the clouds

The ambition of the High thRoughput Optical Network (HydRON) project of European Space Agency (ESA) is to seamlessly extend terrestrial high-capacity networks into space. The concept aims to empower satellite networks by developing terrestrial networking capabilities and features, in order to interconnect all types of space assets by an "Internet backbone beyond the cloud(s)". Concretely, HydRON will take advantage of space assets to complement terrestrial high-capacity networks, ultimately enabling the configuration of a worldwide and world-first 3-dimensional optical network interconnecting terrestrial networks with different (orbital) layers in GEO, MEO, LEO, and HAPS. The 3-dimensional optical network capabilities will revolutionize the SatCom sector and its related commercial business. The HydRON project proposal and initial funding were approved at the occasion of the ESA Ministerial Council in November 2019. To prove crucial aspects of HydRON, a subset of key elements of the overall HydRON System (HydRON-S, encompassing the full width of the future implementation) were selected for implementation in the frame of a demonstration system (HydRON-DS), capable to validate all HydRON aspects end-to-end. HydRON-DS represents the initial stage serving the purpose to gradually demonstrate key technologies required to deploy a first (all) optical transport network at terabit-per-second capacity in space and the seamless extension of terrestrial fibre-based networks into space. The HydRON overall architecture is meant to evolve and enable both architecture upscaling and service expansion.