Resilient On-board Timing

Have fault-tolerant authoritative time sourcing for the spacecraft's clock. The spacecraft should synchronize the internal system clocks for each processor to the authoritative time source when the time difference is greater than the FSW-defined interval. If Spacewire is utilized, then the spacecraft should adhere to mission-defined time synchronization standard/protocol to synchronize time across a Spacewire network with an accuracy around 1 microsecond.

Best Segment for Countermeasure Deployment

  • Space Segment

NIST Rev5 Controls

D3FEND

ISO 27001

ID: CM0048
D3FEND Artifacts: 
Created: 2022/10/19
Last Modified: 2022/10/19

Techniques Addressed by Countermeasure

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ID Name Description
EX-0014 Spoofing Threat actors may attempt to spoof the various sensor and controller data that is depended upon by various subsystems within the victim SV. Subsystems rely on this data to perform automated tasks, process gather data, and return important information to the ground controllers. By spoofing this information, threat actors could trigger automated tasks to fire when they are not needed to, potentially causing the SV to behave erratically. Further, the data could be processed erroneously, causing ground controllers to receive incorrect telemetry or scientific data, threatening the SV's reliability and integrity.
.01 Time Spoof Threat actors may attempt to target the internal timers onboard the victim SV and spoof their data. The Spacecraft Event Time (SCET) is used for various programs within the SV and control when specific events are set to occur. Ground controllers use these timed events to perform automated processes as the SV is in orbit in order for it to fulfill it's purpose. Threat actors that target this particular system and attempt to spoof it's data could cause these processes to trigger early or late.

Space Threats Addressed by Countermeasure

ID Description