Benjamin Cyr and Yan Long (University of Michigan), Takeshi Sugawara (The University of Electro-Communications), Kevin Fu (Northeastern University)
The private sector and even hobbyists are increasingly launching smaller satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, including semiconductors for inertial measurement and other sensing, significantly reduce deployment costs. Such improvements, however, also increase the risk of satellite sensor spoofing attacks, including analog signal injection. Sensor spoofing attacks could compromise the integrity of satellites' onboard sensors, leading to mission-catastrophic kinetic actions. Based on conventional laser jamming and damaging attacks as well as the recent research discoveries on sensor spoofing attacks against terrestrial systems, this position paper (1) shares our views on open technical problems for protecting space systems from analog sensor integrity vulnerabilities, and (2) discusses future challenges of building experimental methodologies, simulations, and evaluation test beds.