A comprehensive engineering evaluation of satellite cyber threats, orbital radiation physics, and hardware security implementation for spacecraft avionics.
Spacecraft provide indispensable global services: GNSS navigation, telecommunications, financial timing synchronization, and national defense surveillance. For decades, satellites operated without cryptographic protection due to hardware weight, power, and radiation constraints. Today, cyber adversaries actively target space infrastructure. SpaceHSM provides the lightweight, radiation-hardened hardware root of trust required to secure modern space missions.
SpaceHSM communicates with the spacecraft On-Board Computer (OBC) and telecommand decoders via standardized European Space Agency SpaceWire (ECSS-E-50-12C) and MIL-STD-1553B interfaces. Telecommand frames are validated directly in hardware before commands can reach attitude determination and control systems (ADCS) or thruster actuators.
To prevent rogue actors from hijacking satellite propulsion to cause orbital collisions or premature de-orbiting, SpaceHSM enforces multi-party ground authorization quorums: thruster fire commands require dual-signed cryptographic tokens verified in hardware.