Scott Kordella, Director of Outer Space Systems at Mitre, wrote an interesting op-ed that appeared in the March 11th print issue of SpaceNews magazine. He tries to look ahead to the challenges that are already cropping up as private industry moves into the realm of space.
This isn’t a subject to be laughing off. America, the germinating nursery of so many new industries, is poised to spark a very large industry in the coming years.
It’s the stuff of sci-fi—and economic — dreams. And it’s mostly a very good thing. The United States government actively supports space commercialization. At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Space Summit in December, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross suggested that with adequate support it could become a $1 trillion-plus industry worldwide within 10 to 15 years.
One issue is simply a matter of “space traffic control”. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) have simply, by virtue of their enormous velocity, a high and potentially dangerous energy.
Everyone shares challenges in LEO — we’ve seen this in other domains like air traffic control. For example, satellites could be maneuvered into the International Space Station, threatening the lives of astronauts, or into spent rocket bodies, creating an enormous amount of space debris.
Another issue is cyber warfare¹. Companies are proposing (and some are building) satellite networks that will be capable of imaging the entire planet with near-real-time access to events. Somebody should take responsibility for ensuring that these networks aren’t easily hacked so as to provide high-resolution on-the-spot video to, for instance, a terrorist organization with a backyard transmitter and some specialized software expertise.
Commercial space businesses must take the long view by doing everything possible today to build capacity into their satellites for future software and firmware upgrades, while designing for both resilience and security. We are still in the infancy of developing standard metrics for cyber resiliency that can be practically used in system designs. We need to find a workable balance: using design guidelines that will truly make space systems secure and safe in a measurable way, while being affordable.
Mr. Kordella, not unexpectedly since he works for a company that operates several federal government research labs, takes the view that both the United States and the United Nations should step up to lay some controls on these companies before they get into trouble. To a certain extent I agree with him, but in my opinion it should take the approach of helping the companies rather than punishing them.
Otherwise, our government runs the risk of drowning the rich new baby in the bathwater, and throwing him out the window before his potential was ever known.
¹ The term “cyber warfare” is widely misunderstood among the general public, for the very understandable reason that they are not well-versed in the computer art. Here is an analogy: in WWII, enemy agents would sometimes be able to insert themselves within the Allies’ radio communication systems, using more powerful radio transmitters, and pose as Alllied personnel in order to spread disinformation or direct tactical deception. Cyber warfare is exactly the same, except that our “radios” control not just our communication but also our equipment as well. A guy with a laptop can break into a power plant, for instance, and change valves in such a way as to cause it to destroy itself. Now — imagine doing this with satellites traveling at 7.8 kilometers per second.