This SAE Aerospace Standard (AS) establishes the specification for TTP communication protocol functionality as a core networking component for design of synchronous, time-triggered distributed real-time communication networks. This document is referred to as the “base” specification, containing the generic specification of TTP communication protocol functionality, and frame formats, communication services and protocol state machines with transitions, TTP node operation, TTP network operation, distributed clock synchronization and error detection on the network layer. The details described in this standard enable interoperable TTP controller implementations.