← T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing
A rocket yule log for your holiday gathering distraction.
00:29:08
Europa Clipper successfully deploys key instruments. Dragonfly gets its lift to space with SpaceX. Another explosion for JAXA’s Epsilon S.
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- [00:02]
Maria Varmazas
You're listening to the N2K space network.
- [00:11]
Clemence Poirier
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- [01:43]
Maria Varmazas
Hello there, us listeners who might be either on the road right now or getting ready to travel for Thanksgiving. If you're excited for the holiday or if you're bracing yourself for it, I know one of the trickiest parts to navigate is safe things to talk about with those relatives you don't see very often. So there are a couple options for you. In today's episode, NASA's moving ahead with two fantastic missions, potentially looking for life supporting conditions on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. I mean, that's pretty cool. Then there's a startup out of France that's working on space robots with five arms to take out rogue spacecraft. I mean, that's wild. And if all else fails, put on your headphones and listen to the calming Yule log video that NASA just uploaded. Yes, I'm serious. All this and more in today's Show. T minus 20 seconds to Los T. Today is November 26, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazas and this is T minus Europa. Clipper successfully deploys key instruments Dragonfly gets its lift to space with SpaceX. Another explosion for JAXA's EP Epsilon S and my guest today is Clemence Poirier, Senior Cyber Defense Researcher at the center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. Clemence and I recently spoke about cybersecurity attacks in space and the long term lessons learned in the years after the Viasat attack. Hi everybody. Here is your Tuesday intel briefing. Good news, everyone. NASA's Europa Clipper and its instrumentation are all doing great. The spacecraft is currently 13 million miles from Earth. And the latest news is that Clipper successfully deployed key instruments as it journeys to Jupiter's moon Europa. Specifically, the Europa clipper extended its 28 foot magnometer boom, which will study Europa's magnetic field to assess its subsurface oceans, depth and salinity. And the Europa Clipper also deployed its radar antennas to map the moon's icy crust. All systems are performing as expected. The spacecraft itself was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in October, and right now it's traveling at a mere 22 miles per second relative to the sun and will arrive in the Jupiter system in 2030. Way before it does, though, it needs to make a few more neighborhood stops. First, a Mars flyby in 2025 for a few quick Mars photos, and then a gravity assist, followed by an Earth flyby in 2026. Once Europa Clipper arrives at the Jovian moon, it has three primary science to determine the thickness of the moon's ice shell and how it interacts with the ocean beneath it, to determine the composition of that ice and to study its geology. All of that is to help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our own. Neat. Staying with NASA for a moment, the US space agency has officially picked SpaceX to be the launch provider for the upcoming Dragonfly mission, which is part of the NASA New Frontiers program. Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander, kind of an ingenuity esque drone meets helicopter meets the ornithopters from Dune. And it will be exploring Saturn's moon Titan, a vastly different world, but similar goal to Europa Clipper. It'll fly from site to site around the moon, collect samples to find out what Titan is made of, and gather data to help scientists see if life ever existed there. You know, no big deal. The contract for SpaceX to launch Dragonfly comes in a firm fixed price contract at approximately $256.6 million with a current targeted launch window in July 2028 from Kennedy Space center in Florida. Another unfortunate setback for Jax's launch ambitions as its Epsilon S second stage rocket motor expl and caught fire 49 seconds after ignition during a test earlier today at Tanegashima Space Center. Thankfully, no one was injured, but as you might imagine, the test facility is a lot worse for wear. This is the second time the Epsilon S engine has had an explosive failure. Last time was in July 2023. Takayuki Imoto, JAXA's Epsilon project manager, said repairs to the facility will take months. Meanwhile, investigation into the cause of the explosion are underway as quickly as possible, as the three stage solid fuel Epsilon S rocket itself is supposed to make its debut launch this coming March. It's being developed as a small launch vehicle for delivering scientific smallsats and cubesats to low Earth orbit or sun synchronous orbit. So this rudd is a very unwelcome setback this close to expected launch. Still, better to have it happen on the test stand than on the launch pad. Moving on to business news now, France's Defense Innovation Agency has contracted Paris based startup DARC to simulate intercepting an active hostile spacecraft, advancing the nation's space defense capabilities. DARC specializes in rapid response missions for capturing debris and threats in low Earth orbit. The simulation they've been contracted for will involve virtual targets with evasion or alert systems. In order to test darc's approach to space security, the company previously conducted an emergency interception study for CNES. DARC's flagship system under development, a space robot called the Interceptor, is being designed for short notice missions capable of deorbiting objects up to 1 metric ton at 1000km with just 24 hours notice. The plan is that the Interceptor will launch from a modified commercial aircraft, offering flexibility and resilience against weather and orbital trajectory changes compared to a rocket based launch. Once deployed, the Interceptor's five robotic arms will secure the target and guide it to atmospheric reentry. DARC plans to test the Interceptor's subsystem, named Hades, in orbit in 2027 and then conduct full interceptor demonstrations by 2030. Slingshot Aerospace won a $13.3 million contract from NOAA's Office of Space Commerce to build the user interface for the US Civil space safety platform Tracs. Slingshot will create the Tracks presentation layer, the name for the globally designed website and user experience for civil, commercial, academic and national security satellite operators. Slingshot plans to incorporate its space traffic coordination software, called Slingshot Beacon into the new interface. The company says this will streamline access to collision warnings and maneuver coordination for satellite operators. NOAA's initiative builds on Space Policy Directive 3, which transferred space traffic coordination responsibilities from the Defense Department to the Office of Space Commerce. Tracks.gov is set to launch in late 2025, replacing SpaceTrack.org for commercial users. Airbus has been awarded a contract by the UK Ministry of Defence to supply next generation satellite modems for the Skynet military satellite communications system. These advanced modems are designed to enhance the UK's secure communications capabilities, providing higher data rates and improved resilience against electronic warfare threats. And the modems will support both current and future Skynet satellites, ensuring seamless integration and operational continuity. This initiative is in alignment with the UK Ministry of Defense's strategy to modernize its communications infrastructure, maintaining a technological edge in defense communications. Inversion, a company pioneering on demand delivery from space, has secured $44 million in Series A funding. The round was co led by Spark Capital and adjacent with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, Kindred Ventures and Y Combinator. This investment brings Inversion's total funding to $54 million. Following a $10 million seed round. These funds will be used to develop ARC, which is Inversion's next generation autonomous reentry vehicle designed to store cargo in orbit and deliver it to Earth on demand, even to remote locations. Inversion aims to transform the $6 trillion logistics industry by enabling rapid, cost effective global delivery we mentioned yesterday Rocket Labs award from the U.S. department of Commerce via the Chips and Science act for semiconductor fabrication for solar cell production in New Mexico has all been finalized. And they're not the only ones with finalized funding. Under CHIPS, BAE Systems will also receive $35.5 million to quadruple their chip production at its New Hampshire facility, accelerating the modernization of both F35 fighter jets and commercial satellites. And Western Australia's inaugural Space Week has launched a $3.5 million investment to establish the state's first commercial satellite assembly facility. Partnering with local space company LatConnect 60, the initiative includes building a satellite to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions. Set for launch in 2026, the project positions Western Australia as a leader in earth observation and satellite technology. LatConnect 60 also plans to deploy a constellation of up to 18 satellites, bolstering the state's growing role in the $13.2 billion global small satellite industry. And that's it for this week's Intel Briefing. There's always more in the show notes or at space.n2k.com hey t/ crew, Be sure to follow T minus Space daily in your favorite podcast app. And also do us a favor, tell your friends and co workers about this show. And heck, if you're going to be hanging out at Thanksgiving with your family, what makes for better inoffensive holiday conversation than the podcast you're listening to, right? You know your brother in law would love to know how he can stay up to date on the space industry. I say it every week. A growing audience is the most important thing for us and we would love your help as part of the T Minus crew. So if you find T minus useful, please share the show so other enthusiasts and professionals like you can find us. Thank you.
- [12:42]
Clemence Poirier
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- [13:25]
Maria Varmazas
Today's guest is Clemence Poirier, Senior Cyber Defense Researcher at the center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. She joined me to talk about takeaways from her new paper, Hacking the Cyber Operations against the Space A Case Study from the War in Ukraine.
- [13:45]
Clemence Poirier
When the war in Ukraine started, of course, the invasion actually started with the cyber cyberattack against the satellite, which is the now infamous fiasc. And prior to this there was very little interest from the space sector for cybersecurity issues and it was a bit overlooked, whether it's from engineers or the industry or public policies, so nobody really paid so much attention to that. And the threat was a bit overlooked as well. But when the VAS attack happened, it was a bit of something like the parallel board for the space industry. In some ways it was really a wake up call. So I decided back then to analyze this attack and analyze what happened, but also what that meant for Ukrainian armed forces and their ability to respond to the invasion, but also all the ripple effect that this attack created across Europe and what it also meant for the European space sector. And after this first attack I asked myself, okay, how many other attacks affected space systems in this conflict? Because everyone saw how Starlink is used to conduct military operations there, but also used by the civilian population, and how it's a central aspect of accessing connectivity there, but also how satellite images are used, how navigation so GPS are used in the conflict. So I asked myself, naturally there would be probably a lot of operation against space systems, so I decided to look into that. And so I crawled through hundreds and hundreds of telegram channels, Twitter account, hacker forums, and a bit weird websites to be honest, and try to see and map groups that took sides in the conflict because that's a big trend that happened in this war. Hacktivist group popped up and took sides in the conflict and I Decided to check how they would talk about space, how they would talk about attacking the satellites or the space sectors or space companies. And so I mapped hundreds of groups and I found 124 cyber operations that targeted the space sector in the context of the war. So by groups that either took side in the conflict or claimed that the attack was related to the conflict directly. And so that's the main finding of the report.
- [17:01]
Maria Varmazas
It's been really fascinating how much that viasat attack really changed the conversation about space cybersecurity. I think previously to that there was a sense of, I'm not, I'm not a military asset, I don't need to worry about it, or I'm, I'm in compliance with government security standards, so I'm fine, or nobody's targeting me, I'm not. This is not an issue. All the conversation has completely changed since then, and especially with commercial players, as you mentioned with StarLink and obviously Viasat as well. You know, there is a whole level of complexity that is there. I am so fascinated that you not only looked at the attack itself, but also what came after in those conversations, because that's been actually a huge question I've had in the last two plus years. Is for adversaries, for threat actors, how has the conversation changed for them? What are they saying? What did you see from those conversations on all sides of the conflict? Is this a domain where people feel comfortable and what kind of attacks are they, Are they trying to leverage? Are they all similar? Are there a lot of different tactics being deployed? I'm sorry, I have so many questions. I'm so fascinated here.
- [18:12]
Clemence Poirier
What I first noticed is that those hacker groups on their telegram channels, hacker forums, Twitter accounts, they really see space as a topic of fascination. So they really use space as a way to gather their communities and their members and create online engagement. So they very often talk about space exploration or whatever is in the news in space. They sometimes share fun facts like the first time that coffee was brewed on the iss, or this kind of things that you would not really expect on a hacktivist group communication channel.
- [19:02]
Maria Varmazas
They're nerds at heart.
- [19:05]
Clemence Poirier
Exactly. And that's very funny because you don't see that about other sectors of the economy. But they also see space as an ultimate challenge and something that would bring a lot of media attention. If they succeed, that is something that is perceived as more difficult to hack. So you see some groups that talk almost in a childish way, like, oh, can we hack a satellite? Should we hack a NASA satellite? And so they discuss about whether that's feasible or not. And they really see this as the final frontier for their cyber operations.
- [20:00]
Maria Varmazas
The notoriety.
- [20:01]
Clemence Poirier
Yeah, yes, that's definitely how it's perceived. But at the same time, when you look at their operations against the space sector, you also see that there are no groups that are specialized or entirely dedicated at targeting the space sector. So there's not one group that only targets the space sector. All the cyber operations that I could find were random, almost among bigger campaigns against specific countries. So it's quite the opposite, in fact, where they actually do not know so much about space. A lot of them say, oh, it was our first attack against satellite, or it was very complex for us to understand how the network was operating or how a satellite functions, or it was very hard to enter into the network. And so they really say acknowledge that and that difficulty. It also shows that maybe cybersecurity is a bit different in space than on Earth. And it's also interesting that Microsoft and OpenAI also disclosed that Russian hacker groups Fancy Bear also used ChatGPT to ask questions about how satellite communication functions and how to target them. So they didn't specify whether they could link it to a natural operation. But that also says that there's still a knowledge gap for threat actors about how to enter into a space system. So the space sector is not necessarily well protected, but because the nature of the system is a bit different, it also saves the sector a little bit.
- [22:15]
Maria Varmazas
We'll be right back.
- [22:24]
Clemence Poirier
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- [22:59]
Maria Varmazas
Welcome back. I've talked about it a lot in today's show. Just about all of us in the US right now are getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, eating good foods and getting cozy in the cold weather. Nothing beats a good roaring fire in the fireplace if you've got one. And if you don't. Ever since the 1960s, the Yule Log TV show has been a great option. The Yule Log TV show was and still is in all its amazing variations, a close up, multi hour video of a wood fire in a fireplace that's both kitschy and cozy and something to have playing on your TV in the background of your holiday party in case you don't want open flames around when the wine starts flowing and in the last few years, a whole bunch of themed Yule logs tend to get very popular on YouTube. Any fandom or musical genre or special interest you can imagine, there's probably a themed Yule log video for it. And as if NASA was not going to take part in this today, in fact, they just quietly dropped on their YouTube channel this morning. Here's their title. NASA Rocket Engine Fireplace 8 Hours in 4K and here's their description. Just what you need for the holidays. The coziness of a crackling and roaring rocket engine. Technically, this fireplace packs the heat of four RS25 rocket engines and a pair of solid rocket boosters. Just enough to get you to the moon and through the holidays with your in laws. This glowing mood setter is brought to you by the Space Launch System rocket that launched Artemis 1 on its mission around the Moon and back on November 16, 2022. 8.8 million pounds of total thrust and a couple glasses of eggnog might just be enough to make your holidays merry. Well played NASA. It's amazing how they fit all four RS25s and two SRBs in a lovely stonewood burning fireplace, but somehow they squeezed it in. I already know that this is going to be playing at my house this year. As if there was any question of that. And I gotta say, not to get too spoilery, but my favorite part is about four hours and eight minutes in where the engines go. And that's it for T minus for November 26, 2024, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@space.n2k.com we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T Minus are part of the daily routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpie is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Varmazas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T Minus.