Development of an SDN-based Space System Simulation Framework for Intrusion Detection

Space systems are an integral part of critical infrastructure, providing services such as communications and navigation. Increasing reliance on these systems, by both civilian and military sectors, as well as the growing number of satellites in space have heightened the interest of malicious actors to compromise these systems, primarily through cyber attacks, to cause harm across multiple domains that depend on the space systems. Meanwhile, software-defined networking is increasingly being considered in the space sector for network virtualisation and centralized control. While software-defined network (SDN) capabilities have been demonstrated in terrestrial networks, there is dearth of empirical research validating the efficacy of SDNs for space systems/networks, partly due to the lack of relevant and accessible tools to support the necessary experimentation. As a solution, a simulation framework for SDN-based space networks (S3FS) has been developed. Using this framework, a network comprising a Walker-Delta satellite constellation and a ground station was simulated using MATLAB and opensource tools. A SDN-based Space Systems Intrusion Detection (S3ID) dataset containing both normal and malicious network traffic was generated to validate the utility of this simulation framework. Both the simulator and dataset are unique in the nascent literature on space cybersecurity.