AIMING AT A RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE SPACE SECURITY SYSTEM

Most discussions of space security (basically the security of operational satellites) for intended or unintended interference focuses on the space segment. This proposal takes a much broader view, taking a system perspective that embraces environmental, policy and legal aspects.

A resilient and sustainable space security system involves balanced investments between the following elements:

• The space segment – including space situational awareness and space traffic management;
• The spectrum segment – including spectrum allocation and management to make optimal use of this inherently limited resource and to minimize the possibility of unintentional jamming and to ensure that sources of intentional - jamming are identified.
• The cyberspace segment – to ensure that the actual content of communications between ground stations and satellites is not interfered with and that data downlinked from satellites is also not corrupted in any way.
• The ground segment – to ensure that physical infrastructure is adequately protected and that people who support satellite operations have relevant clearances and are considered to be ‘fit and proper’ for their duties.
• The policy and legal segments – that provide common understandings between nations and within nations, with sanctions and enforcement mechanisms, where appropriate, for those who break relevant laws.
• The end-user segment – end users of data from satellites (decision-makers) must be confident that the data they receive has not been tampered with and they need to understand what the data is telling them.

The GNF we propose will study the space security as a system. The forum will focus on the importance of relationships on the interactions and inter-relationships between each of the segments outlined above. In a systems view of any area of human endeavor, the focus is not on organisations or platforms or nodes. Rather the focus is on the quality and depth of the relationships and the transactions between those organisations, platforms and nodes.

Moderator

Serge PLATTARD

Senior Resident Fellow, European Space Policy Institute (ESPI)

Speakers

Xavier PASCO

Senior Research Fellow, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS)

Peter HAYS

Associate Director, Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies

Brett BIDDINGTON

Space Industry Association of Australia

Attila MATAS

Head of the Space Publications and Registration Division, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Switzerland