SCR | ESA CSC

Competitiveness & Growth

Status

Ongoing
Status date

2024-10-22
Activity Code

3D.022

Objectives

The background of the project involves the evolving and sophisticated nature of cyber threats to space systems, especially as artificial intelligence become more prevalent in space technologies. The susceptibility of small satellites to cyberattacks is a growing concern. Furthermore, there is an increasing need to test and validate different assets against these threats, as well as to educate people about space cybersecurity-related risks.

To address these challenges, the project's primary objective was to create a a concept and business plan for the Space Cyber Range - a secure, realistic, and cost-effective virtual platform. This solution would mimic space-related environments and threats, help users to test, validate and certificate various space technology and processes, support organising training and exercises, an help in knowledge sharing and networking in the space industry with a focus on cybersecurity and New Space.

To achieve the objectives, the concept study was divided into three work packages:

Gap and Market Analysis:
- Identify end-users/customers and market demand.
- Analyze user needs and competition.
- Define space-based use cases and requirements.
- Identify relevant standards.
Business Plan Elaboration:
- Assess the business case and consolidate the business plan.
- Analyze service models and define the service value chain and development plan.
- Gather customer and partner feedback.
- Conduct cost analysis and develop a pricing model based on costs, customer expectations, and market competition.
Preliminary Architecture:
- Define the development and operational model.
- Create a preliminary architecture for the solution.
- Develop scoring and visualization methods.
- Outline the main steps for technical solution development.
- Select external interfaces.

Challenges

These main challenges were set for Phase 1 (Concept Study):

Define counterparties to carry out the activity and eventually materialize the range in Phase 2.
Engage potential users and partners in Phase 1 to understand their expectations.
Evaluate the cyber and space industries to assess the Space Cyber Range's market potential.
Define user and infrastructure requirements as inputs for the business plan and further development.
Ensure a representative audience to draw conclusions for the concept study. Real end-user space-based use cases must be represented in the Space Cyber Range to ensure real uptake of the output—evidence of needs collected during the study.
Engage potential customers and partners for Phase 2 development as pilot users, including deeper assessment and specification of requirements, using their solutions, and providing context for the solution.

Benefits

The Space Cyber Range offers a comprehensive virtual environment for:

Testing, validation, and certification of various space assets and processes.
Cybersecurity training and exercises.
Industry knowledge sharing and networking.

This environment aims to increase the reliability and security of industry participants' solutions while promoting education and knowledge sharing within the space ecosystem.

Features

The Space Cyber Range platform provides services in a virtual environment that enables:

Testing, Validation, and Certification: This includes testing and validating different space technologies and processes, utilizing both pre-integrated third-party solutions and easily deployable in-house ones.
Training and Exercises: The platform aims to enhance the cybersecurity of space solutions and increase participants' knowledge with a focus on New Space. It is designed as a comprehensive and self-sufficient system for conducting cyber exercises, training, and testing in a secure and isolated environment. It offers the flexibility to run on various hosting environments, including private hardware, hosted environments, public clouds, or qualified third-party platforms. The platform comes pre-integrated with all necessary components, ready for pre-packaged and custom exercises, training, and testing.
Knowledge Sharing & Networking: The platform acts as a marketplace for content sharing through various publications, manuals, blogs, event information, and more.

The capabilities include:

Testing: penetration, communication, integration, performance, reliability and recovery, and many other.
Training and exercises: hybrid, multi party, live-fire, team-based, individual etc.
Knowledge sharing & networking: publications, blogs, demos, manuals and much more.

System Architecture

To ensure maximum flexibility and scalability, the Space Cyber Range is organized into four main modules:

Shared low-level infrastructure, which supports other modules and includes hardware and software for virtualization.
Infrastructure services, providing core functions like DNS, logging, user management, and monitoring systems.
Platform services, responsible for running and deploying different scenarios and exercises.
Emulated systems, encompassing the GameNet systems for offensive and defensive players and device testing.

The architecture incldes the following:

Space Cyber Range Platform
Space Cyber Range Gamenet
Space Segment components (satellite bus and payload)
Ground Segment components (ground stations, mission control system, mission planning, flight dynamics, operations, various cloud services, and external services, data feeds and sensors)
Segment-specific threat information
Space Cyber Range Scenarios
Testing, validation, certification capabilities.