Satellite security lags decades behind the state of the art

Science Daily  July 11, 2023 Despite its critical importance, little academic research has been conducted on satellite security and the security of onboard firmware. This lack likely stems from by now outdated assumptions on achieving security by obscurity, effectively preventing meaningful research on satellite firmware. Researchers in Germany have provided a taxonomy of threats against satellite firmware and conducted an experimental security analysis of three real-world satellite firmware images. They based their analysis on a set of real-world attacker models and found several security-critical vulnerabilities in all analyzed firmware images. The results showed that modern in-orbit satellites suffer from different […]

Improving the performance of satellites in low Earth orbit

EurekAlert  February 21, 2023 Although small satellites have a lot of potential due to their smaller size, they have lesser radiation shield and the deployable membrane attached to the main body for a large phased-array transceiver causing non-uniform radiation degradation across the transceiver. This affects the gain variation and performance of the satellite. To mitigate radiation degradation researchers in Japan created a phased-array transceiver with on-chip distributed radiation sensors which can detect the gain variation between the chips of the antenna. This was combined with current-sharing techniques to mitigate the gain variation and thus reduce the impact of non-uniform ionizing […]

NASA uses moonlight to improve satellite accuracy

Phys.org  April 4, 2022 The Moon is extremely stable and not influenced by factors on Earth like climate to any large degree. It is a very good calibration reference. An international team of researchers in (US – NIST, USGS, Canada) developed NASA’s airborne Lunar Spectral Irradiance (air-LUSI) which is a telescope that accurately measures how much light is reflected off the lunar surface to assess the amount of energy Earth-observing satellites receive from moonlight. It will help to improve the accuracy and consistency of measurements among Earth-observing satellites. The results will compliment ground-based sites. Scientists can more easily compare data […]

Iodine successfully tested in satellite ion thrusters

Phys.org  November 18, 2021 Xenon is used almost exclusively as an ionizable propellant for space propulsion. However, xenon is rare, it must be stored under high pressure and production cost is high. Researchers in France used iodine propellant in a system and presented in-orbit results of the technology. They stored iodine as a solid and sublimated at low temperatures. Plasma was produced with a radio-frequency inductive antenna with enhanced ionization efficiency. Both atomic and molecular iodine ions were accelerated by high-voltage grids to generate thrust, and a highly collimated beam was produced with substantial iodine dissociation. The propulsion system was […]

World’s first commercial re-programmable satellite blasts into space

Phys.org  July 30, 2021 The European Space Agency launched the world’s first commercial fully re-programmable satellite from French Guiana on Friday [July 30, 2021] ushering in a new era of more flexible communications paving the way for a new era of more flexible communications. Unlike conventional models that are designed and “hard-wired” on Earth and cannot be repurposed once in orbit, the Eutelsat Quantum allows users to tailor the communications to their needs—almost in real-time. Because it can be reprogrammed while orbiting in a fixed position 35,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above the Earth, the Quantum can respond to changing demands […]

Innovative technologies for satellites

EurekAlert  April 7, 2020 Researchers in Germany working on project INNOcube have developed two technologies, Skith and Wall#E, to further simplify architecture for small satellite. Skith (Skip the harness) eliminates the internal cabling of the satellite components by enabling data transmission with ultra-broadband radio. Wall#E (Fiber Reinforced Spacecraft Walls for Energy Storage) is a special fibre-reinforced structure that can store electrical energy and at the same time used as the supporting structure of the satellite. It contributes to a significant reduction in the mass and volume of a satellite while maintaining the same performance. A prototype is expected to be […]

Finding a killer electron hot spot in Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts

Science Daily  December 13, 2019 Scientists have known that electrons in Van Allen radiation belts that interact with ultralow frequency plasma waves accelerate to reach the speed of light. However, it has not been clear when or where these killer electrons start to accelerate. To gain more insight about the electrons an international team of researchers (Japan, USA – industry, University of Iowa, Russia) analyzed data generated on March 30, 2017, by the Arase satellite and Van Allen Probe. On one side of the Earth, the Van Allen Probe identified characteristic signs of an interaction between ultralow frequency waves and […]

Two tiny supercomputing Pioneer nanosatellites launched

Phys.org  July 8, 2019 ESA has launched two tiny supercomputing parallel supercomputing scalable satellites nanosatellites (size of a shoebox) built by an international team of researchers (UK, Canada). It can be programmed to both receive and process data while in orbit. The small satellites can collect over a terabyte of data per day which has to be analyzed in orbit so that true insights can be delivered to customers directly and in a timely fashion…read more.

Melting a satellite, a piece at a time

Phys.org  June 17, 2019 An international team of researchers (UK, Germany, Portugal) working on ESA’s Clean Space initiative, placed a 4 x 10 cm magnetotorquer in a plasma wind tunnel reproducing reentry conditions to study how satellites burn up during reentry. They noted some similarities but also some discrepancies with the prediction models. They observed the behaviour of the equipment at different heat flux set-ups for the plasma wind tunnel in order to derive more information about materials properties and demisability. A big source of uncertainty in the demise process is the tendency for parts to fragment, generating multiple items […]

Fleets of autonomous satellites to coordinate tasks among themselves

Phys.org  March 27, 2019 Working under the CORDIS project NetSat researchers in Germany aim to launch four small satellites, at the end of this year, to orbit the Earth and test formations with varying degrees of autonomy, with light-touch supervision from ground control. Each satellite weighs 3 kilogram and they will be placed in low Earth orbit. The satellites will be able to coordinate with each other over distances from about 100 kilometres down to 10 metres, as well as change their formation depending on the tasks they need to perform. AI can make a satellite aware of its surroundings and […]