Holding the high ground: defending satellites from cyber attack

MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the Space Cyber-Resiliency group at Air Force Research Laboratory-Space Vehicles Directorate have prototyped a practical, operationally capable, and secure-by-design spaceflight software platform called Cyber-Hardened Satellite Software (CHSS) for building space mission applications with security, recoverability, and performance as first-class system design priorities.

Following a successful evaluation of CHSS against an existing U.S. Space Force mission, the CHSS platform is currently being extended to support hybrid space vehicle architectures that incorporate both CHSS-aware and legacy subsystems. CHSS has the potential to revolutionize the cyber-resiliency of space systems and substantially ease the burden of defensive cyber operations.