Ebook: Space Infrastructures: From Risk to Resilience Governance

As the world gets more digitalized and dependent on space technologies, efforts in the research community are concentrating to fully grasp the impact and effects of failed outer space technologies, as well as their connection to the Earth-based systems and services, both military and civilian. Space-based assets and systems are critical to ensuring security on Earth (“security from space”), and, at the same time, these assets need to be protected in the challenging environment of outer space (“security of space”).

Space critical infrastructures represent an interdependent system of systems that comprises its workforce, environment, facilities, and multidirectional interactions. Space critical infrastructures are essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions – like health, safety, security, mobility, economic or social well-being of people, and whose destruction or disruption would have a significant impact on the society at large. This is a holistic approach to space critical infrastructure, away from strictly defined space technologies, towards understanding the resilience of complex systems, and how they are intertwined in reality.

Today, a total of 79 nations and government consortia operate satellites. Besides, 11 countries operate 22 launch sites. Despite creating new challenges, this multi-actor environment opens opportunities for international cooperation – including within NATO member and partner nations.

The NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW), entitled “Critical Space Infrastructure: From Vulnerabilities and Threats to Resilience,” was held on 21–22 May 2019 in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. It was organized by the Old Dominion University and the Technical University of Moldova in collaboration with the State University of New York at Albany. The workshop was enabled by NATO’s Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Program.

The ARW brought together representatives from academia, industry, and international organizations in order to deepen scientific and technological understanding of space critical infrastructures and explore the implications for national and international space security and resiliency. This ARW examined the space as a critical infrastructure from a multidisciplinary perspective in accordance with NATO’s Strategic Concept. The strategic concept warns about the deployment of technologies that threaten allied capabilities in space and recognizes as an urgent priority the protection of the Alliance’s critical infrastructures.

In this book, highlights from the discussions in the ARW are shared in 29 chapters under six sections, which are:

I. Governance of Space Critical Infrastructures

II. Cybersecurity of Space Infrastructures

III. Risk, Resiliency, and Complexity of Space Infrastructures

IV. Emerging Technologies for Space Infrastructures: Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing

V. Application Domains for Critical Space Systems

VI. National Approaches and Applications for Critical Space Infrastructures

Editors

This chapter is based on the discussions derived from the Advanced Research Workshop entitled “Critical Space Infrastructure: From Vulnerabilities and Threats to Resilience.” The recommendations provided regarding vulnerabilities, risks, and resilience of space critical infrastructures.

Space systems have become key enablers for a wide variety of applications on Earth through evolving capabilities in navigation, positioning, timing, data gathering and communications. These capabilities have become, in certain instances, critical to the functioning of critical infrastructure systems. These are interconnected sociotechnical systems which provide critical goods and services and whose destruction or disruption would cause significant loss of human life, material damage and other effects. The paper argues that space systems can provide a new category of critical infrastructures and highlights the differences between terrestrial and spaceborne systems from the perspective of the critical infrastructure protection framework.

The outer space has been discussed within the related natural science disciplines and, as can be expected, has fallen short of securing a place for itself in the social science literatures. Quite similar to the cyberspace in this regard, the outer space nevertheless has recently started to be discussed within the social sciences as well. This brief contribution discusses the role of the space as global commons in the context of the Outer Space Treaty signed in the year 1967. While it is true on one hand that the space has been treated as a global commons, open to the enjoyment of all international parties, its role as such might not continue as the race in the space gets more commercialized. The article also briefly touches upon several scenarios as to how the space might get compartmentalized or even ‘Balkanized’, in political science terms.

Space systems are shaped by the realities of many interacting parts, emergent behavior, adaptation, change, and uncertainty. These realities affect the capacity and performance of space systems that man greatly depends upon. Governance of space systems offering direction, oversight, and accountability for space systems is needed. However, there is a lack of a multidisciplinary understanding of space system governance. The main aim of this study is threefold: (i) to explore the space system domain from a complexity vantage point; (ii) to offer Complex System Governance (CSG) as a possible multidisciplinary approach to space system direction, oversight, and accountability, and; (iii) finally, to suggest several areas where CSG might offer contributions in addressing development of space system governance. The paper concludes with the particular space system challenges where CSG might provide useful insights.

The Space Sector is in the in the middle of a transformational change fueled by the advent of private sector in what used to be a purely governmental enterprise. This new type of actors brings about new ideas, a different way of doing things, as well as an attitude of challenging the incumbents they perceive as obstacles to progress. Therefore, the whole space establishment must adapt and reinvent itself to face this new reality.

Critical Space Infrastructure (CSI) is in the formative stages of development with high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and fragmented development viewpoints. As CSI continues to evolve, Complex System Governance (CSG) provides an insightful set of perspectives that can advance prospects for smoother CSI development. CSG offers a Systems Theory-based approach focused on improving complex system performance through purposeful design, execution, and evolution of critical system functions. These functions establish communications, control, coordination, and integration and ultimately determine system performance. CSG is particularly appropriate for CSI development to: (1) clarify and structure dialogs around critical systemic issues across the spectrum of techno-socio-political-economic frontiers, (2) provide a mapping of the governance for a complex CSI system and its context to identify fragmentation sources and systems-based challenges, (3) offer a paradigm, methods, and tools for the discovery of ‘deep systems issues’ and alternative resolution paths based on systems theoretic formulation, and (4) drive the system science-based engineering of applications to accelerate more coherent CSI development.

This chapter assesses the implications of expanding use of commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware and software for the cybersecurity posture of small satellites and other space infrastructure. It examines both how such COTS equipment can increase the set of threats and threat actors that space infrastructure must contend with, and also how such materials could introduce new vulnerabilities to space infrastructure. Finally, it ties these questions about the widespread and rapid adoption of COTS materials to a similar trend in the broader internet of things (IoT).

Insufficiently-secured technologies deployed in critical space infrastructures represent a major attack surface whose exploitation will likely trigger a sequence of catastrophic incidents. Compounded by the race for commercialization of outer space and the lack of an oversight agency responsible for securing space assets, threats stemming from cyberspace have the potential to translate into attacks, conflicts, or even warfare conducted in outer space. This paper aims at examining the ensuing significant legal ramifications of such incidents involving State and non-State actors under international law. To that end, it employs a concrete cyberattack scenario where a commercial satellite with thrusters is captured by cyber means and weaponized into something that can disrupt ongoing military operations and destruct other space assets. It then delves deep into the legal characterization of the cyberattack in question as well as its attribution to a State and/or non-State actor under the law on State responsibility with respect of ‘attribution’.

Space Infrastructure, such as satellite, plays a significant role in technological advancement on earth; and is no longer the sole responsibility of individual nation-state, or discrete groups, we trust to protect it from adversary cyber-attacks. The increase in the deployment of earth observation satellites, communication satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, and space telescopes to support technological advancement on earth present us with the issue of establishing adequate cybersecurity protection for such critical Infrastructure; which support on-earth global telecommunication infrastructures, essential electrical power grids, and GPS guided navigation for transportation. To address this, we adopt a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) managerial principle to build a cybersecurity framework which will serve as a basis for sound cybersecurity program to address the issue of cybersecurity protection base for Space infrastructure.

Governments today emphasize space systems as critical infrastructures. Many vital services, including communications, transportation, and maritime operations, depend on space systems. Cyber systems represent an essential component that enables effective functioning, configuration, and monitoring of technological space services. Space systems possess unique vulnerabilities and properties that attract the attention of hackers, and often with varying motivations. The private sector increasingly participates in the production of space technologies, and as a result of the differences in perceptions and priorities of governments and the private sector, handling the challenges of governance as it relates to the cybersecurity of space systems presents an avenue for research. Public-private partnership is one effective way of solving this governance challenge that public and private entities face. With several possible approaches to building a workable partnership between the public and private organizations, this paper offers a mixed approach with the potential to improve the security of space systems, mitigate vulnerabilities, and run effective campaigns against cyber threats.

Smart meters are under a fast development in line with overall digitalization that covers the energy sector. More applications, more rules and higher efficiency are resulting and therefore the “impact” of threats is driving developers to consider increasingly more the cyber security approach. Considering the personal data protection GDPR in force with May 2018, the concern about cyber protection and data privacy covers more and more areas. The architecture under this paper work (Unbundled Smart Meter under Role based Access Control) is presented compared with current applied solutions (like “DSO market facilitator” or “Independent central hub”, showing significant improvement from both perspectives: usage of meter data and cyber security, being also an advanced data handling approach compatible to a third data handling solution: the Data Access Point Manager concept.

War is an organized armed conflict that is carried out by states, nations, national and social groups. Reasons and aims of the war aggressiveness of humans and of human society; the struggle for power territory treasures resources (including natural resources); political domination; ideological & religion contradictions; and sovereignty aspiration. Space will become yet another environment for the full spectrum of human activities, including conflicts. It is not a matter of should space weapons be deployed anymore, but when to deploy. Prudent countries have proactive political, and security environment for space.

Mission assurance is a method to guarantee mission success against a known set of risks; mission assurance is generally represented as a probability against a threshold of acceptable performance. Human assurance can be considered as the likelihood of acceptable operator performance given a set of conditions that include the operator, the system, and the environment. Standard mission assurance models tend to assume a qualified crew, but do not include other aspects of the internal or external environment that may impact the reliability of the human operator. A human assurance model can be created that allows the exploration of the variability in operator performance due to the likelihood of different risks. An example human assurance model has been created for the detection of adverse trending satellite data and the need to modify the existing mission schedule to address the satellite emergency. The model leverages the Human Viewpoint framework to capture the human-focused data within the mission context. From this data, sources of risk can be identified for the socio-technical system and a risk framework developed. The resulting risk model allows exploration of the characteristics of both the operator and the operating environment, as well as the impact of organizational mitigations, on the likelihood that the socio-technical system will meet mission assurance thresholds. The method provided can be used to identify the limitations of human system performance against the established criteria.

Solar arrays are one of the most important parts of a satellite that experience severe space weather conditions. In this study, using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process, we analyzed the risks of the solar arrays of geostationary (GEO) satellites. First, we conducted a detailed literature survey on “solar array risks.” Then, using the Space-Track database, anomalies that occurred between 1985 and 2015 on the solar arrays of GEO satellites were analyzed and used as inputs for risk assessment. We also defined an “overall risk value” as the combination of the probability of occurrence and the relative weight of the severity of each risk criterion. Finally, the risks were ranked and the five most critical ones affecting the performance of solar arrays were identified. The results confirmed that the conceptual modeling and design phases are extremely important steps in satellite projects. This article proposes a risk assessment method based in a combination of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and probabilistic risk assessment. A numerical application is presented to show that the results can be used to provide recommendations for risk reduction.

By analyzing several content characteristics, this paper critically addresses the usability of the critical infrastructure resilience indexes and outlines several directions for approaching the design of these working tools. After a brief presentation of some achievements in the field, the conclusions converge towards the integration of architectural frameworks, in order to obtain a satisfactory result of the foreseen solutions, with high possibilities for updating and upgrading.

Small satellites, and in particular Cube Sats, are evolving from education and technology mission types to science and critical Earth observation type missions. Some of these more complex missions involve monitoring a nations critical infrastructure and thereby becoming a component of a nations space critical infrastructure. This integration into the system of space critical infrastructure requires that the design of these small satellite systems become resilient to insure an appropriate level of mission assurance. A resilient system represents an engineered system that has the capability to resume its designed functionality after a failure from an unexpected event. The resumption of capability needs to occur within a short amount of time either through reconfigurability or through timely replacement. This paper will discuss a small satellite design architecture and design framework that will result in a resilient system that maintains the operational philosophy of small satellites that will mitigate the growth in size, mass, and power (SMAP) and cost that normally occurs with developing systems in a risk-adverse manner. To achieve the above design goals will be to design based on a heterogeneous suit of small satellites with a design process that is correct-wrt-requirements to achieve are silient system.

Critical Infrastructure Systems must provide and guarantee a good basis for people, goods, services and information on which the health, safety, comfort and economic activity of a society depends. The security risks are increasing related with interdependencies between critical infrastructures that are not readily identifiable by traditional risk identification processes. It is necessary to have a way of systematic analysis of dependencies and interdependencies between critical infrastructures, using many dimensions (physical, cyber, geographic, logical and social). The relationships between Critical Infrastructure (CI) failure and their resilience are in function with interdependencies between subsystems of each CI. Critical infrastructures from the sector of energy are dependent from occurrence of geomagnetic storms and 3D distributions in underground of the electric conductivity. The external magnetic field penetration into the underground is direct dependent on the conductivity of the region. Also, magnetic field penetration is inverse dependent on his frequency. Deeper layers are more significant at long periods, and the shallow layers produce stronger influences at short periods. In this paper we show some considerations on: development of fast response algorithms, in real time, to highlighting some phenomena that precede of the geomagnetic storms and its beginning time; development of algorithms for determining the geomagnetic induced current (GIC); development of methodologies and complex analysis of multi parametric data related phenomenologically to develop from the conductivity maps to vulnerability maps.

In the past two decades, sand and gravel are the most significant portion of primary material inputs used in building and transport infrastructure and are the most-extracted group of raw material in the world, exceeding both fossil fuels and biomass. Sand is an essential ingredient for many industries, including concrete, glass, and electronics. There is a growing demand for sand where there is rapid economic development. Scientists have been studying the effects of the building new infrastructure systems on habitats but have overlooked the impact of extracting sand to make those new systems. This lack of focus, on the effects of mineral extraction, is probably due to lack of awareness. The absence of data on aggregates sand mining leads to lack of awareness and makes observations, about its impact, very difficult. This study proposes a systematic monitoring mechanism for the sand extractions and trade that can bridge the current data and knowledge gap. The main goal of the study is to develop a sand governance framework to regulate sand extraction, use, and trade. First, space imagery technology is employed to analyze the sand resource; then a business framework is developed applying blockchain technology, which generates trusted decentralized network and bypasses central authorities.

From very recent experiments in microgravity on sounding rockets [1], ultra cold alkali atoms have been forced into a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Moreover, by using resonant microwave pulses on the internal structure of the BEC followed by a selection operator (“coin”) for streaming, Dadras et. al. [2.3] have achieved a momentum quantum walk of a BEC. The differences between a classical and quantum walker [4] are summarized as well as the two basic unitary operators necessary for the quantum walker: these unitary operators play essentially the same role in our unitary qubit lattice gas algorithms (QLA) for nonlinear physics that we have been developing for some time. The QLA is discussed and examples are given for 1D soliton collisions as well as determining a quasi-stable vortex soliton in self-defocusing nonlinear media. The QLA can be directly encoded on a quantum computer.

Artificial Intelligence – (AI) is the intelligence proved by machines, robots and is the contrast of the natural intelligence, which belongs to humans and animals. AI is the intelligence that mankind created. When creating an artificial intelligence system, one of the most difficult problems is the computer simulation of certain actions: to create sounds and to judge, to draw conclusions on the basis of mere perceptions of certain situations. One of the main characteristics of Artificial Intelligence is their capacity to learn with or without help from the outside, with the purpose of improving continuously. Artificial Intelligence has also a deep connection with the Neural Networks field. AI can be both a friend and an enemy to Critical Infrastructures and Space Critical Infrastructures, the assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and the economy. It can either help you predict when terrorists or other threats will strike a target or AI itself may turn against our systems. One of EU’s major objectives is to decrease the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructures and increase their resilience, thus, this paper investigates the ways in which the protection of Space Critical Infrastructures could be enhanced by the use of Artificial Intelligence.