Securing International Space Station Against Recent Cyber Threats

Abstract

Artificial satellites, as a vital part of our infrastructures, are launching to space for different purposes such as the Internet, forecasting weather/disaster, and space exploration. International Space Station (ISS), as a space exploration research center in the Earth orbit, is the largest satellite in space. Astronauts in ISS do research on astrobiology, astronomy, and testing spacecraft equipment for a long-term mission to Moon and Mars. ISS is considered a unique satellite to provide some valuable information about space exploration; however, according to research, the ISS is vulnerable to different cyberattacks. In other words, cybersecurity challenges may compromise the ISS performance, which is controlled via ground/space stations and communication between them. Thus, this paper considers cyberattack threats compromising the ISS and mathematically models false data injection (FDI) attack threatening ISS power system. Two types of FDI are applied to the ISS power system, which results in (1) battery depletion and (2) load shedding. Then, security defense mechanisms are recommended to protect the ISS power system from the cyber threats.