Vendors that design, integrate, or support mission systems often hold elevated, persistent routes into operations: remote administration of ground software and modems, access to identity providers and license servers, control of cloud-hosted services, and authority to deliver firmware, bitstreams, or patches. Attackers who compromise a vendor’s enterprise or build environment can assume these roles, issuing commands through approved consoles, queuing updates in provider-operated portals, or invoking maintenance procedures that the mission expects the vendor to perform. Some vendor pathways terminate directly on RF equipment or key-management infrastructure; others ride cross-account cloud roles or managed SaaS backends that handle mission data and scheduling.
| ID | Name | Tiering | Description | NIST Rev5 | ISO 27001 | Onboard SV | Ground | |
| CM0022 | Criticality Analysis | Criticality analysis is a structured engineering process that identifies the mission functions, system components, and data flows whose compromise, degradation, or loss would most severely impact mission success, crew safety, or operational continuity. The outputs of this analysis directly drive security investment prioritization: components and functions assessed as most critical receive the most rigorous design-phase protections, supply chain scrutiny, and operational security controls, while lower-criticality elements are protected proportionately. Criticality analysis findings should inform the application of complementary security design principles, including network and functional segmentation and least-privilege access control, to isolate critical components from less-trusted system elements and reduce the consequence of compromise elsewhere in the system. Supply chain protection resources and oversight rigor should be explicitly allocated in proportion to component criticality, ensuring that the most mission-essential hardware and software receive the most intensive sourcing controls, provenance verification, and supplier oversight. Criticality analysis must be initiated early in the system design process and updated as the architecture evolves, threat intelligence changes, or operational experience reveals previously unrecognized dependencies. | CM-4 CP-2 CP-2(8) PL-7 PL-8 PL-8(1) PM-11 PM-17 PM-30 PM-30(1) PM-32 RA-3 RA-3(1) RA-9 SA-11 SA-11(3) SA-15(3) SA-2 SA-3 SA-4(5) SA-4(9) SA-8 SA-8(25) SA-8(3) SA-8(30) SC-32(1) SC-7(29) SR-1 SR-2 SR-2(1) SR-3 SR-3(2) SR-3(3) SR-5(1) SR-7 | A.8.9 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 A.5.2 A.5.29 A.8.1 A.5.30 8.1 A.5.8 A.5.8 4.4 6.2 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 10.2 6.1.2 8.2 9.3.2 A.8.8 A.5.22 A.5.2 A.5.8 A.8.25 A.8.31 A.8.27 A.8.28 A.8.29 A.8.30 5.2 5.3 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 A.5.1 A.5.2 A.5.4 A.5.19 A.5.31 A.5.36 A.5.37 A.5.19 A.5.20 A.5.21 A.8.30 A.5.20 A.5.21 A.5.22 | ||||
| CM0025 | Supplier Review | A supplier review is a structured pre-contract assessment conducted before entering into any agreement with a contractor or subcontractor for the acquisition of systems, system components, or system services. The review evaluates the prospective supplier's security posture, trustworthiness, and capability to deliver components or services that meet the mission's integrity and assurance requirements, before contractual commitments are made and before the supplier gains access to mission information or influence over mission systems. Supplier reviews reduce the risk of introducing supply chain vulnerabilities through poorly qualified, compromised, or adversary-influenced suppliers at any tier of the acquisition chain. The rigor and depth of the review should be calibrated to the criticality of the components or services being acquired, with suppliers of mission-critical hardware, software, or services subject to the most intensive assessment. Supplier review findings should inform not only the decision to contract but also the specific security requirements, oversight provisions, and flow-down obligations included in the resulting agreement. | PL-8 PL-8(1) PL-8(2) PM-30 PM-30(1) RA-3(1) SA-11 SA-11(3) SA-17 SA-2 SA-3 SA-8 SA-9 SR-11 SR-3(1) SR-3(3) SR-4 SR-4(1) SR-4(2) SR-4(3) SR-4(4) SR-5 SR-5(1) SR-5(2) SR-6 | A.5.8 4.4 6.2 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 10.2 A.5.2 A.5.8 A.8.25 A.8.31 A.8.27 A.8.28 A.5.2 A.5.4 A.5.8 A.5.14 A.5.22 A.5.23 A.8.21 A.8.29 A.8.30 A.8.25 A.8.27 A.5.21 A.8.30 A.5.20 A.5.21 A.5.23 A.8.29 A.5.22 | ||||
| CM0039 | Least Privilege | The principle of least privilege requires that every process, user account, service, and system component be granted only the permissions and access rights necessary to perform its defined function, with no additional privileges retained beyond what the assigned task requires. Applied to spacecraft and ground systems, this means that processes executing on flight computers, operating system services, ground system applications, and inter-system communication handlers are each confined to the minimum privilege level needed for their specific function, preventing a compromised or malfunctioning component from leveraging excess permissions to affect other system resources or functions. Separate execution domains should be used where supported to reinforce least privilege and contain process failures or compromise. Process isolation does not replace explicit access controls, because authorized communication and shared resources may still cross execution-domain boundaries. Least privilege is a foundational design principle that reduces the consequence of any individual component compromise by limiting what an adversary can accomplish within that component's execution context. | AC-2 AC-3(13) AC-3(15) AC-4(2) AC-6 CA-3(6) CM-7 CM-7(5) CM-7(8) PL-8 PL-8(1) SA-17(7) SA-3 SA-4(9) SA-8 SA-8(13) SA-8(14) SA-8(15) SA-8(19) SA-8(3) SA-8(4) SA-8(9) SC-2(2) SC-32(1) SC-49 SC-50 SC-7(29) | A.5.16 A.5.18 A.8.2 A.5.15 A.8.2 A.8.18 A.8.19 A.8.19 A.5.8 A.5.2 A.5.8 A.8.25 A.8.31 A.8.27 A.8.28 | ||||
| CM0055 | Secure Command Mode(s) | Secure command modes provide additional layers of restriction on spacecraft command acceptance beyond standard authentication and encryption, constraining when, where, and under what operational conditions the spacecraft will process commands. These supplemental controls reduce the window of opportunity for unauthorized commanding by limiting command receptivity to defined parameters that an adversary would need to satisfy simultaneously with authentication requirements, substantially increasing the difficulty of a successful command injection attack. Specific implementations include geographic restriction, in which the spacecraft accepts commands only when in contact with designated ground station locations; operational mode restrictions, in which special flight software (FSW) modes must be active before certain command categories are accepted; and temporal controls, in which the spacecraft enforces time-bounded windows during which commands are valid. These mechanisms complement command authentication, integrity protection, anti-replay controls, and authorization and do not replace them. Encryption should also be applied where command confidentiality is required. Secure command modes may combine geographic, temporal, operational-state, source, or other mission-defined conditions according to the active command policy. Secure command modes helps create a multi-dimensional command acceptance policy that an adversary must defeat in its entirety to achieve unauthorized command execution. | AC-17(1) AC-17(10) AC-2(11) AC-2(12) AC-3 AC-3(2) AC-3(3) AC-3(4) AC-3(8) CA-3(7) IA-10 PL-8 PL-8(1) SA-3 SA-8 SC-7 SI-3(8) | A.8.16 A.5.15 A.5.33 A.8.3 A.8.4 A.8.18 A.8.20 A.8.2 A.8.16 A.5.8 A.5.2 A.5.8 A.8.25 A.8.31 A.8.27 A.8.28 A.5.14 A.8.16 A.8.20 A.8.22 A.8.23 A.8.26 | ||||
| CM0005 | Ground-based Countermeasures | Ground-based countermeasures protect the terrestrial capabilities that develop, launch, command, monitor, operate, secure, and sustain space missions. These capabilities may be distributed across mission-owned systems, contractor environments, external partners, and commercial service providers. Because ground segment architectures and responsibilities vary, cybersecurity protections should be selected through threat-informed analysis of the mission functions being performed rather than through indiscriminate application of a single control set. The SPARTA Ground Segment Cyber Defenses guidance provides an interactive functional decomposition that maps ground segment function groups to applicable Defense-in-Depth sub-layers and countermeasure targets. The supporting report, VTR-2026-00702 Rev A, Ground Segment Cyber Defenses and Risk-Based Tiering, provides the methodology, definitions, and risk-tier rationale. The accompanying Ground Segment Cyber Defenses Excel Workbook consolidates the function mappings and Baseline and Enhanced countermeasure guidance into a resource that can be tailored to a specific mission architecture. | SPARTA Ground Segment Cyber Defenses guidance | None | ||||
| CM0034 | Monitor Critical Telemetry Points | Monitoring defined spacecraft telemetry points provides a key source of evidence for detecting adversary activity against on-orbit systems, where observability is largely limited to the events and conditions the spacecraft can sense, record, and report. Monitored telemetry must include both accepted and rejected commands, command mode transitions, command counters, and other indicators of commanding activity, enabling detection of unauthorized command attempts that fail authentication as well as anomalous patterns in legitimate command traffic. Monitoring scope should include RF and link-quality indicators that support detection and triage of interference or suspected jamming. These indicators should be correlated with expected link conditions and other available evidence before hostile activity is concluded. Security-relevant telemetry should be integrated and time-correlated with ground-based defensive cyber operations infrastructure, including security information and event management (SIEM) and audit platforms, to provide unified space-system cybersecurity situational awareness. The resulting view should correlate spacecraft observations with relevant ground-system security events while accounting for telemetry latency, contact availability, and other observability limitations. | AC-17(1) AU-3(1) CA-7(6) IR-4(14) PL-8 PL-8(1) SA-8(13) SC-16 SC-16(1) SC-7 SI-3(8) SI-4(7) | A.8.16 A.5.8 A.5.14 A.8.16 A.8.20 A.8.22 A.8.23 A.8.26 | ||||
| CM0038 | Segmentation | Segmentation establishes physical or logical isolation boundaries between spacecraft system components and functional domains to limit the propagation of compromise, contain the consequences of a security failure, and enforce controlled information flow across the mission architecture. Mission-critical functions must be isolated from non-mission-critical functions through enforced partition boundaries that control access to and protect the integrity of the hardware, software, and firmware implementing those functions. Information flow between partitioned components or applications must be explicitly authorized by security policy; any flow not affirmatively permitted is denied by default. Boundary protections must be implemented to separate spacecraft bus, communications, and payload components, preventing a compromise in one domain from directly affecting the others. Information crossing the spacecraft boundary shall receive confidentiality protection where required by its classification, sensitivity, or mission risk. Command-bearing and other security-critical exchanges shall receive the mission-required authentication, integrity, authorization, and anti-replay protections regardless of whether confidentiality is required. These controls collectively implement a defense-in-depth architecture in which an adversary who gains a foothold in one partition faces enforced barriers before reaching mission-critical assets. | AC-4 AC-4(14) AC-4(2) AC-4(24) AC-4(26) AC-4(31) AC-4(32) AC-4(6) AC-6 CA-3 CA-3(7) PL-8 PL-8(1) SA-3 SA-8 SA-8(13) SA-8(15) SA-8(18) SA-8(3) SA-8(4) SA-8(9) SC-16(3) SC-2(2) SC-3 SC-3(4) SC-32 SC-32(1) SC-39 SC-4 SC-49 SC-50 SC-6 SC-7(20) SC-7(21) SC-7(29) SC-7(5) SI-17 SI-4(7) | A.5.14 A.8.22 A.8.23 A.5.15 A.8.2 A.8.18 A.5.14 A.8.21 A.5.8 A.5.2 A.5.8 A.8.25 A.8.31 A.8.27 A.8.28 | ||||