Security vs. Resilience, and Why You Need Both
There is a difference between resilience and security.
A resilient network is resistant to outages; a secure network is resistant to eavesdropping.
For any network, including satellite systems, these are two different design considerations.

Security
Security comes from the CIA triad: protecting against outsiders getting access to (confidentiality), modifying (integrity), and disrupting access to your information (availability, which is also a component of resiliency).
RF links from satellites are subject to eavesdropping (breaking confidentiality), spoofing (integrity), and jamming (removing availability).
Security is achieved primarily through sophisticated encryption and anti-jamming techniques (changing power levels and frequency). 
But security is always a game of one-upmanship. Even proving your secure network is actually secure is a challenge.
This is the promise of quantum communications: leveraging the laws of physics to ensure a secure link, a topic that was discussed at a recent QED-C webinar focused on Network Security.

Resilience
At its simplest definition, resilience is the ability to withstand difficulties.
For a system architecture, the US Air Force defines resiliency as the ability "to continue providing required capabilities in the face of system failures, environmental challenges, or adversary actions."
There is a growing recognition that our satellite systems, including GPS, are vulnerable because they "were designed for a peaceful, benign environment without a threat."
But those days are over with the recent scary advancements in anti-satellite weapons.
Moving towards resilient space systems is now a priority (see below).
It should be noted that for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) users, assurance is also critical. This means maintaining multiple sources in case one part of the system is compromised.

Last Week's Theme: Back on the Horse

• Joined an impressive group of quantum companies addressing Network Security at the latest QED-C Quantum Marketplace. If you missed the live session, the recording will be posted soon.
• Preparing for our next Board of Directors and Board of Advisors meetings.
• Looking ahead to our next Investor Session, which will be announced soon.
• Developing new proposals, new IP, and hardware development.
• Space Foundation Global Alliance and Foundation for the Future interviews and podcast to be released soon.
• Also planning ahead for presentations (supporting LSU) at the Quantum 2.0 Conference and an upcoming Time Appliances Project session.

• Recently leaked documents noted that China has the capability “to hold key U.S. and Allied space assets at risk” if there was a “conflict with Taiwan.”
• The Center for Strategic & International Studies released their “Seven Critical Technologies for Winning the Next War” that includes quantum and space-based technology, including “alternatives to GPS systems."
• The US Department of Defense (DoD) plans to “normalize space as an operational domain” after a space strategic review found that China was a “pacing challenge.”
• In the wake of the launch of their third quantum satellite, China talked about their plans for "a global, all-day quantum communication network" that includes:
  • Three to five small QKD satellites in sun-synchronous orbits that provide links between cities.
  • MEO-to-GEO satellites with 600 mm diameter optical telescopes for intercontinental quantum communications.
  • These satellites will link to compact ground stations.
• France officially launched their FranceQCI Quantum Communications Infrastructure project led by Orange and co-funded by the European Commission EuroQCI initiative.
• “The short answer is yes, we're in a space race to get to the Moon with China,” according to NASA. They are on the case with a “Moon-to-Mars Architecture Definition Document” with an “architecture to return humans to the moon as a step towards eventual missions to Mars.”
• The DoD prepared a “Rapid Response to Emergent Technology Advancement or Threats” proposal that would grant them “the ability to begin development of new-start programs up to their preliminary design review level of maturity.”
• ‘Smart cities’ can be ‘almost anything you want,’ according to mayors from the U.S. and Canada.
• Who invented the measurement of time?

• Commercialising Quantum Global, May 17 - 19, London UK
• European Navigation Conference, May 31 - June 2, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
• Joint Navigation Conference, June 12 - 15, San Diego, CA
• Quantum 2.0 Conference, June 18 - 22, Denver, CO
• Q4I, June 27 – 29, Rome, New York
• Small Satellite, August 5 – 10, Logan, Utah
• Euroconsult, September 11 – 15, Paris, France
• APSCC, October 10 – 12, KL, Malaysia
• ITSF, Oct 30 – Nov 2, Antwerp, Belgium
• UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2023, Nov 2, London, UK
• SLUSH, Nov 30 – Dec 1, Helsinki, Finland

A lot of attention is focused on security, but resiliency is even more critical for satellite systems. 
After all, what is the point of security if there are no communications?
Satellites in particular are sitting ducks, and not just against anti-satellite missiles.
The US Space Force chief of space operations recently described “an incredibly sophisticated array of threats” that includes jamming, spacecraft that can grapple other satellites, lasers that can dazzle them, cyberattacks, and even “nesting dolls,” or satellites that release others that spread out and track adversaries’ spacecraft.
This was echoed in a recent US DOD Directive that outlined concerns “about the vulnerability of GPS systems to attack or interference," noting that adversaries "already have a variety of counterspace weapons that could degrade or disrupt GPS satellites and associated systems and impede U.S. military operations.”
The solution?
There is no magic technology that ensures resilience. Instead, it requires proper system design.
Resiliency in networks can best be achieved through a "belts and suspenders" approach that embraces disaggregation and redundancy.
The head of the Space Development Agency described his idea of a resilient satellite architecture of a large quantities of satellites in different orbits: “We'll put up hundreds and hundreds of satellites…[that] are more affordable than the missiles that you need to shoot them down.”
China has also embraced resiliency with their BeiDou system.

It already consists of 42 satellites in a mix of MEO, GEO, and inclined GEO orbits.

Their vision is to expand to a "space segment, a ground segment and a user segment," with a 120-satellite low earth orbit (LEO) constellation, Loran-C, inertial sensors, and future systems like quantum navigation.

To learn more, please email us or schedule a meeting here.