11/1/23 ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) has introduced the Space Safety Program (S2P) that includes the use of AI to improve sustainability, security, and resilience.
As part of this program, ESA is investing in operations cyber resilience. This includes a new Space Cybersecurity Operations Center and security-certified ground segment.
Using a new cybersecurity framework, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a key technology in this effort. AI will be used for automation and intelligent detection of space systems threats.
Dr. Daniel Fischer, Head of Ground System Segment and Cybersecurity Engineering at ESA.
Dr. Fischer, Head of Ground System Segment and Cybersecurity Engineering at ESA, was a keynote speaker at the recently held Software Defined Space Conference in Tallinn, Estonia, where he provided addiitonal insight into their efforts.
“The deployment of a Cybersecurity Operations Centre at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) and the European Space Security and Education Centre (ESEC) will deliver to Europe a capability to detect cybersecurity attacks to the end-to-end space infrastructure,” explained Dr Fischer. “Understanding that most cyber-attacks on space infrastructure target ground-based systems and assets, the European Ground Operations System Multi-Mission Generation (EGOS-MG) will enable fully secure operations of multiple spacecraft and missions at the same time, creating synergies while maintaining the necessary security posture.
“Research and development in ground segment cybersecurity capabilities is fundamental to address the needs of future missions,” he continued. “ESA is pushing development in the area of zero-trust ground segments, secure space-link communications, space cybersecurity engineering framework, as well as key developments in adjacent technology fields such as Artificial Intelligence and Digitalisation. Finally, through its OPS-SAT programme, ESA and Europe are constantly executing cybersecurity-based experiments to understand better space cybersecurity attack and defence techniques and the associate technologies.”
Software Defined Space Conference 2023 — Estonia