Emerging Threats of AI-Integration in Space User Segment: A Reference Architecture and Attack Tree Analysis

As the space sector expands with new types of satellites, orbital systems and services, the user segment faces escalating security threats. This segment delivers crucial services for enabling interactions between users and space systems, highlighting the need for strong security mechanisms as attack surfaces widen and become more sophisticated. In particular, the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the space domain brings new attack vectors that traditional methods cannot address. To systematically analyse this emerging threat landscape, this paper develops a reference architecture to model the user segment's components, communications and processes. We specifically assess the AI-impact on attack surface by constructing attack trees for Earth Observation scenarios with and without AI integration, using dedicated space and AI threat modeling frameworks (i.e., SPARTA and ATLAS). By comparing threats and impacts between these attack trees, we determine the unique security challenges introduced by exploiting AI. These insights contribute priorities for security strategies to defend against evolving AI-driven threats, as well as specify the caveats of AI-integration in the space user segment.