The new protocol is somewhat different from the one that forms the backbone of the internet, called TCP/IP. On Earth, if some data is lost between a sender and a recipient, the two communicate back and forth until all the information is sent.

That 'handshake' works well on Earth, where the network is almost always continuously connected, says Adrian Hooke, team leader at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

But in space, probes pass behind planets and out of range, power outages are common, and distances between planets vary as the planets move in their orbits. In addition, at distances not far beyond the Moon, the time required to beam data between a sender and a recipient makes back-and-forth communication between the two inefficient, says Hooke.