The number of satellites in low Earth orbit is expected to increase significantly in the coming years as more and more mega constellations become available. At the same time, this will create new opportunities for attackers to hide weapons or spy satellites among a fleet of peaceful satellites – wolves in sheep’s clothing.
To minimize such risks, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) commissioned space startup Slingshot Aerospace to develop a new tool that could detect potentially dangerous satellites deliberately hiding in mega constellations. This system is called Agatha.
DARPA officially selected Slingshot to work under the PRECOG (Predictive Reporting and Enhanced Constellation Objective Guide) program in March last year, and the work was completed this January. According to the government database HigherGov, the company received about $1 million for its work.
Slingshot’s researchers generated 60 years of synthetic constellation data to train Agatha so that the system could detect the slightest differences in satellite behavior, using those differences to determine the satellite’s true operational directives.
As it turned out, there are many little things that can indicate a mismatch with the stated goals. These could be small changes in the satellite’s mass affecting its station, or if the satellite communicated differently with the Earth, or if it was always oriented in the same direction (compared to all other satellites in the constellation).
While Agatha learned from simulations, Slingshot eventually tested the system on real constellations, identifying harmless satellites in existing operator fleets. The program, which today runs on Slingshot’s Space Domain Awareness Platform, now collects data from the company’s own global sensor network, its Seradata database, as well as other public and private sources.
Slingshot’s vice president of strategy and policy, Audrey Shaffer, noted that in the past, a person or team of people could look at orbital trajectory data and other data sources and make an informed assessment. But that was before the emergence of 10-15 thousand megaconstellations.
«But as development and activity in space simply grows exponentially, it will become impossible for humans to truly sift through all this data without the help of tools like Agatha».
Source: techcrunch