Autonomous Space Systems

On-orbit assets are essential for current and future mission success; however there are numerous types of attack that threaten their safety. To protect these assets and ensure their continued operation, these threats must be detected as quickly as possible so that appropriate responses can be taken. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a prototype event detection system that demonstrates complete autonomous onboard threat detection and situation assessment. The goal is to make sense of all the different sources of information available, from raw state of health data and dedicated sensor outputs to ground inputs and the output results of other detection systems. The proposed system will combine higher-level fusion and situation assessment software with automated threat signature discovery and learning techniques to provide the level of real-time event detection and situation assessment that is necessary to protect on-orbit assets. A modular design will enable the system to be re-used on multiple assets with various input data sources. The ultimate objective is to integrate the system into the AFRL Autonomous Mission Manager for future on-orbit demonstration. BENEFIT: The modularity of the threat detection and situation assessment software enables it to be marketed to all satellite developers and end-users who are interested in protecting their assets from external threats, both natural and man-made. Additionally, since the software will be integrated into the Autonomous Mission Manager, a complete protection system can be offered to these customers. This increases the probability of commercialization success. The primary markets for the threat detection system are military and national security space since their assets are obvious targets for attack. Commercial and civil space customers could also benefit from the system for space weather event detection. Additionally, as the Department of Defense makes greater use of commercial satellites for communications and imagery, these satellites will become targets for offensive counterspace actions. The proposed system can help protect these assets as well.