[deepspace] Outcome of WG Adoption Call for draft-li-tiptop-address-space

[Padma Pillay-Esnault <[e-mail]>]

Dear WG,

The adoption call for draft-li-tiptop-address-space has concluded.

The document received substantial review and comments. There appears to be
support for the WG working on the address-space problem, but the discussion
also raised significant questions about the assumptions, use cases, and
allocation model proposed in the draft.

During the call, another draft, draft-kumari-tiptop-address-space, was
published. That draft proposes a different model for space address
allocation: IANA would reserve IPv6 address space for space use, and the
existing RIRs would request allocations from that space and make
assignments or allocations through their normal policy processes. This
differs from draft-li-tiptop-address-space, which places more emphasis on a
common outer-space address block and aggregation around celestial bodies or
regions, potentially managed through a single outer-space RIR function.

Given the comments received and the existence of different proposed
approaches, the chairs do not see clear WG consensus at this time to adopt
draft-li-tiptop-address-space as-is.

The discussion indicates that the WG needs more clarity on the assumptions
and use cases before selecting an addressing approach. It would be useful
to evaluate the proposed approaches against concrete use cases, including
lunar deployments, Mars deployments, asteroid-belt or small-body missions,
multiple agencies, multiple commercial operators, multihoming, private or
mission-specific networks, and Earth-space connectivity involving relays
that may be operated by another operator. Some of these use cases may not
yet be documented in sufficient detail in the current use-case draft, and
the outcome of this work should also feed back into that document.

We therefore ask the authors of the address-space drafts to coordinate and
work toward either a common document or a clearer comparison of the
proposed models, including the assumptions, use cases, and open issues. The
substantive comments from the adoption call should be discussed on the list.

The chairs will form a design team to analyze the use cases, assumptions,
governance considerations, and address-allocation models, and to report
back to the WG. We invite volunteers who are interested in contributing to
this design team to respond to this message on the list. After collecting
the list of volunteers, the chairs will decide the design-team composition.

Thanks to the authors and to everyone who reviewed and commented.

Padma Pillay-Esnault and Zahed Sarker
TIPTOP WG chairs