Harvey Reed, MITRE; Nathaniel Dailey, MITRE; Ruth Stilwell, Aerospace Policy Solutions, LLC; Brian Weeden, Secure World Foundation
Keywords: Space Traffic Management (STM), Space Surveillance Network (SSN), Space Domain Awareness (SDA), Persistence, SNARE, BESTA, GREAT
Abstract:
Preservation of space for its long term sustainable use requires stakeholders who not only want to preserve the usability of the domain for the benefit of all humankind, but also with access to trusted and relevant information to make informed decisions and to take constructive actions. Space safety is a stakeholder-driven activity; there is no single controlling authority over space as an international domain. These stakeholders want to limit their own negative behavior, including the generation of space debris and other pollution, while practicing positive behaviors to expand scientific and commercial activities by following recommended practices for launch, on orbit, decommissioning, and reentry. This requires using trusted space data to individually self-synchronize activities. This trusted space data includes the position of space objects (during launch, in-orbit, or de-orbit), activity of X (sustain orbit, maneuver, or decommission) and more. However, the challenge is that each of the stakeholders, including government, industry, and academia, have limited access to comprehensive knowledge of the space ecosystem, even though this information may be needed in their roles as producers and consumers of space related information.
This paper describes the information-sharing infrastructure needed to ensure all stakeholders can benefit from equal access to symmetric and trusted information on the state of the space ecosystem. Symmetric information assures that all stakeholders have access to the same information. Trusted information means that it is attributed, available, has known pedigree and provenance, and is not controlled by any individual stakeholder or subset of stakeholders and cannot be maliciously altered. The thesis of this paper is that when individual stakeholders have access to trusted data in a symmetric manner, then one of the emergent effects is the preservation of space. Further, beyond individual stakeholders, international partnerships can benefit from the ability to combine expertise, by sharing trusted and symmetric space data, as an opportunity to advance the preservation of space, which benefits everyone in the partnership. This approach recognizes similar considerations applied to commercial and academic relationships.
This paper explores how to build and use a decentralized space information sharing infrastructure to provide trusted and symmetric space related data. This infrastructure can consist of implementation patterns, practices, and methods, as well as operational capabilities. This decentralized information infrastructure builds on nascent technical frameworks to support decentralized sharing of data such as the ongoing Blockchain Enabled Space Traffic Awareness (BESTA) effort.
This paper illustrates the decentralized information sharing infrastructure concepts in the form of use cases with description of benefits to various stakeholder types. A use case template is introduced which can be used to further scope ecosystem requirements. The goal of using a decentralized approach to building a space stakeholder trust model, built on a technical approach for decentralized information sharing, is to empower individual stakeholders to bring the space community closer to its shared goal of preserving the long-term sustainability of space.
Date of Conference: September 14-17, 2021
Track: SSA/SDA