Mission-level space situational awareness

Complex space systems typically provide the operator a means to understand the current state of system components. The operator often has to manually determine whether the system is able to perform a given set of high level objectives based on this information. The operations team needs a way for the system to quantify its capability to successfully complete a mission objective and convey that information in a clear, concise way. A mission-level space cyber situational awareness tool suite integrates the data into a complete picture to display the current state of the mission. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory developed the Spyder tool suite for such a purpose. The Spyder space cyber situation awareness tool suite allows operators to understand the current state of their systems, allows them to determine whether their mission objectives can be completed given the current state, and provides insight into any anomalies in the system. Spacecraft telemetry, spacecraft position, ground system data, ground computer hardware, ground computer software processes, network connections, and network data flows are all combined into a system model service that serves the data to various display tools. Spyder monitors network connections, port scanning, and data exfiltration to determine if there is a cyber attack. The Spyder Tool Suite provides multiple ways of understanding what is going on in a system. Operators can see the logical and physical relationships between system components to better understand interdependencies and drill down to see exactly where problems are occurring. They can quickly determine the state of mission-level capabilities. The space system network can be analyzed to find unexpected traffic. Spyder bridges the gap between infrastructure and mission and provides situational awareness at the mission level.