Threat surveillance and protection of space-based assets

Topic description

Objective:

Space has become a domain of strategic and military competition. While space capacities have become strategically important to Europe’s civil and commercial objectives, and are critical to ensure vital functions in military operations, the easier access to space, the growing number of space debris in orbit and the existence of counterspace capabilities and actions introduce increasing risks and threats to space assets. This implies the necessity to protect European space assets in their outer space environment.

Protection can be achieved by active and passive measures. This includes steps such as anti-jamming protection and other on-board countermeasures. It also includes means to characterise and attribute actions and effects of adversaries to enable satellite operators to restore functions, capabilities, or capacities after a human-made space incident.

Passive protection allows the detection and the characterisation of any attempt and action considered as hostile in order to limit the effects or to propose a counter action.

Considering the increasing threats and hazards towards space-based capabilities, technologies for passive protection of space assets should be developed for a better efficiency, safety and resilience of core missions. Such technologies should in particular address local detection, identification and characterisation of threats and protection mechanisms (including manoeuvres) with a focus on the capability to complement ground-based observations by leveraging on the use of space-based sensors.

General objective

The general objective of this topic is to conduct research activities on space-based technologies contributing to the protection of space-based assets against a wide range of threats and to demonstrate the feasibility of selected technological solutions.

Specific objective

The specific objectives of this topic are to identify and consolidate the potential threats to space assets and an overall preliminary system layout with associated functional chains of the different components (open architecture with interfaces and the possibility to integrate other and legacy systems), to study and select the best promising technologies to counter such threats based on this overall preliminary system layout, and to elaborate the associated technological roadmap as well as to start its implementation on some technological blocks.

In addition, this topic aims at studying the repartition of functionalities between ground- and space-based components to achieve an effective protection of the space assets, taking into account the interfaces with a wider space surveillance network for military space situational awareness: e.g. repartition of the sensors (on-board – as a primary or secondary sensor – or on the ground) and an overall preliminary system layout linked to a command and control (C2) approach to gather data and then elaborate a common operational picture of threats.

The proposals must address the identification and consolidation of the main threats against generic space assets and associated vulnerabilities, the identification of technical solutions or adaptation of procedures to counter these threats, as well as the definition of the overall preliminary architecture for the elaboration of a comprehensive approach (satellite, C2 and system layout) to deal with these threats.

The proposals must consider at least the following threats:

• interference, uplink and downlink jamming and spoofing;
• electromagnetic pulse attacks, high-energy lasers and high-powered microwave weapons;
• physical attacks (e.g. threatening objects coming from intended space debris generation, as well as co-orbital and ground based anti-satellite weapons (ASAT)).

The proposals must consider technologies contributing:

• to the detection and identification of the threats, including, but not limited to, anti-satellite weapons and space objects with unexpected behaviour, using data processing for space applications and spectral signature;
• and to the protection of the space assets;

such as:

• passive or active optical sensors, radar sensors, on-board processing for proximity surveillance and tracking, including AI-based on-board elaboration for high-level actionable information extraction from measurements to support autonomous decision-making and manoeuver;
• manoeuvrability to protect platform and payload, including technologies for instantaneous, rapid and agile evasive manoeuvres to escape objects that carry out suspicious/attacking proximity manoeuvres;
• technologies to protect satellite communication resources and C2 activities access from unwanted usage;
• electronic support measures (ESM) sensors for space assets;
• protection against high-energy laser, electromagnetic pulse attack and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons;
• technologies allowing various level of autonomy and generation of pre-processed information for data volume reduction during transmission to ground.

Types of activities

The following table lists the types of activities which are eligible for this topic, and whether they are mandatory or optional (see Article 10(3) EDF Regulation):

The proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of the mandatory activities:

• Generating knowledge:
  • the identification and analysis of current and expected threats against space assets and evaluation of associated vulnerabilities;
• Studies:
  • the consolidation of technological solutions to address these threats, their technology readiness level (TRL), the performance required and the evaluation of their interest/operational added value;
  • the elaboration of a technological roadmap at equipment level to further develop the best promising technological solutions;
  • the analysis/study of the space system protection architecture (including ground control) to propose solutions trade-off in order to answer to each identified threat (e.g. dedicated satellites, on-board payload integrated in satellites as a secondary mission, inter-satellite links, impact on the ground segments);
  • the analysis of the integration constraints of each technological block (e.g. SWaP requirements, class of satellite platform on which it is integrable).
  • the development of an overall and preliminary system layout, based on the threat analysis. The system layout must address the operational use of identified self-protection solutions and include:
    • the operational scenarios to be taken into account;
    • the level of automation of the technical solutions;
    • the data needed at C2 level to contribute to the monitoring of the space situation limited to the threatened space asset and counteraction;
• Design:
  • the definition and design of selected technological blocks (sensors, on-board processing and passive counter actions). A layout as hosted payloads for big satellites and small satellites as well as a single payload for dedicated “protection” small satellites must be considered for each proposed technological solution;
  • the risk reduction tests/demonstration of these technological blocks.

In addition, the proposals must substantiate synergies and complementarity with foreseen, ongoing or completed activities in the field of Space situational awareness (SSA), notably those performed in the context of the call topics EDIDP-SSAEW-SC2-2020 and EDIDP-SSAEW-SSAS-2020, or foreseen in the context of the call topic EDF-2023-DA-SPACE-SSA.

Functional requirements

The technologies for space asset protection should meet the following requirements:

State of the art of the threats: ability to detect, to identify and to mitigate a wide range of threats (see Scope section above) in terms of power, origin and destination (e.g. LEO to LEO, ground to LEO, GEO to GEO, ground to GEO).

On-board autonomy:

• enable autonomous extraction of actionable information from the captured imagery/data including through AI-based techniques (see Scope section for examples of sensors and technologies);
• enable autonomous decision-making to implement safety procedures on the satellite and/or payload, including manoeuver execution and mission operation rescheduling (see Scope section for additional examples of targeted mitigation measures).

Space-to-ground efficiency: the transfer of data should minimise the impact on the primary missions.

Feasibility of integration in space assets: adaptability to various space platforms (EU, Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) assets) taking into account the technological constraints linked to the integration of secondary missions on space assets (cost, volume, energy…).

The outcomes should contribute to:

• the development of technological components that will have a major impact on the detection and identification of threats and protection of space assets;
• the development of technological solutions against space threats;
• the future integration of the developed components in Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) solutions and in European programmes space assets;
• the resilience of space systems and a better space domain awareness associated to the protection of space-based assets;
• EU approaches regarding “Defence in Space”.