Digital Frontiers: How Cyberspace is shaping the Future of Space Operations

Maria Demaree has over 34 years of aerospace and defense experience and currently leads the National Security Space division at Lockheed Martin Space, overseeing 8,000+ employees and 250+ defense and intelligence programs. A recognized thought leader in the national security space, she is an expert in CJADC2, software-defined satellite architectures, and AI/ML technologies. Through this article, Maria highlights the importance of cybersecurity in space operations and Lockheed Martin Space's commitment to cyber hardening its networks, spacecraft, and workforce.

Over recent years, policy research organizations have raised awareness to the prevalent reality of cyber threats that are being developed to target space capabilities to include on-orbit assets, ground systems and the critical links that connect them. Additionally, because of the lower barrier to entry from an acquisition and technical deployment perspective, the use of cyber capabilities to target space infrastructure or conduct cyber espionage is becoming more common.

“By elevating our collective cyberiq through meaningful training and communications touchpoints, we are ultimately investing in our workforce’s vigilance and rewarding the proactive safeguarding of information.”

Therefore, as a premier 21st Century Security® provider, Lockheed Martin Space is approaching every aspect of our missions with cyber security at the forefront and in turn are helping our customers stay ahead of the sophisticated threat environment, which is ultimately helping them to protect our ability to operate freely in the space domain. With that in mind, here is a snapshot of how we are cyber hardening our networks, our spacecraft, and our workforce:

Cyber Kill Chains®: Changing the Paradigm

To get ahead of the evolving cyber threat landscape, we pioneered the Cyber Kill Chain®, which is a framework for analyzing cyber incidents from an adversary’s perspective that looks at each potential failure point of a cyber-attack. Historically network defense has been viewed as a losing battle because the network defender must be perfect 100% of the time, whereas an adversary must only be successful once. The Cyber Kill Chain® inverts that paradigm to focus on each action a cyber defender could take to disrupt an attack. So as a result, we have reframed our entire approach to incident prevention, detection, and response around this model, further empowering our cyber teams at every level across the enterprise.

Zero Trust Architectures: Resiliency by Design

The adoption of Zero Trust Architectures (ZTA) is paramount for safeguarding critical assets against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats; however, ZTA(s) are not a panacea. Therefore, we are adopting ZTA(s) along with other leading-edge cyber security practices at all levels to protect our business operations, production, suppliers, and ultimately our supply chain. After all, the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data are non-negotiable.

In the context of space systems, we believe in resiliency from the onset of design and are continuously exploring ways to incorporate zero trust architectures to secure communication between satellites, ground stations, and other space-based assets without degrading the speed and effectiveness of those vital mission systems. However, that doesn’t come without its challenges. Space systems are typically semi-autonomous, embedded processing systems with large distances between communication points (Satellite to Satellite, Satellite to Ground Systems, etc.) resulting in latency in communications. Moreover, a satellite’s connectivity to ground affects identity and access management capabilities. This is a particularly important industry-wide consideration as low earth orbit (LEO) becomes more proliferated with various satellite capabilities.

Smarter Satellites: Mission Flexibility and Cyber Resiliency

Another key cyber security consideration is ensuring parity between satellite’s cybersecurity protections with the cyber security protections found in modern ground computer systems. That is why we pioneered, our SmartSat™ technology, a software-defined satellite architecture that lets users upload capability and assign new missions to satellites post-launch, while on-orbit. This allows operators to make requisite updates (e.g., patching software updates) to address emerging cyber security threats.

Creating a Cyber-conscious Culture:

Bottom line — our people are foundational to our company’s cyber security strategy. After all human error accounts for 80+% of all cyber incidents. So, by elevating our collective cyber-IQ through meaningful training and communications touchpoints, we are ultimately investing in our workforce’s vigilance and rewarding the proactive safeguarding of information. In closing, by making cybersecurity part of our daily operations, we are enhancing our company’s resilience as well as maintaining our competitive edge in the highly sensitive and perpetually dynamic aerospace and defense industry.