Big Ideas Lab - Space Security

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

In the vast silence of space, security is anything but quiet. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, cutting-edge science and strategic defense converge to protect the satellites we rely on—guarding them from cyber threats, kinetic attacks, and space debris. As the risks above grow more complex, we’ll uncover the evolving dangers and the invisible shield being built to defend against them.-- Big Ideas Lab is a Mission.org original series. Executive Produced by Lacey Peace and Levi Hanusch.Sound Design, Music Edit and Mix by Daniel Brunelle. Story Editing by Daniel Brunelle. Audio Engineering and Editing by Matthew Powell. Narrated by Matthew Powell. Video Production by Levi Hanusch. Guests featured in this episode (in order of appearance): Ben Bahney -  Program Leader for Space, LLNLWillem DeVries - Associate Program Leader for Mission Support, Space Science and Security Program, LLNLBrought to you in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In 2009, two satellites traveled thousands of miles per hour on routine orbits through the vastness of space. One was an active communication satellite. The other was a defunct, drifting Russian cosmos satellite. An obsolete relic moving silently through orbit. Then... Impact. silently through orbit. Then, impact. The two satellites collided, an accident that sent thousands of debris fragments hurtling through Earth's orbit. The

debris spread rapidly, threatening operational satellites and forcing the International Space Station to adjust its course to avoid potential impacts. The wreckage is still floating in space, adding to the growing cloud of space junk that poses a risk to satellites, space stations, and future missions. The collision served as a wake-up call for the space industry, highlighting long-term risks of uncontrolled satellite failures. Scientists realized we needed more sustainable practices in orbit. Satellites are critical to modern life. They power communication networks, enable GPS, support financial transactions, and play

a vital role in national security. And as space becomes more crowded and contested, protecting these essential systems is critical. Today we'll explore the hidden world of space security, where advanced technology and strategic planning work to safeguard our modern infrastructure. Welcome to the Big Ideas Lab, your weekly exploration inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Hear untold stories, meet boundary-pushing pioneers, and get unparalleled access inside the gates. From national security challenges to computing revolutions, discover the innovations that are shaping tomorrow,

today. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is hiring. If you're passionate about tackling real-world challenges in science, engineering, business, or skilled trades, there's a place for you at the lab. Right now, positions are open for a Windows Configuration Management Administrator, a Flight Performance Integration Mission Delivery Leader, and a Senior Counterintelligence Office Director. Active clearance required. These are just a few of the more than a hundred exciting roles available. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, you'll work on projects that matter, from

national security to cutting-edge scientific advancements. Join a team that values innovation, collaboration, and professional growth. Explore opportunities at LLNL.gov forward slash careers, where your next career move could make history. Space security is this idea that we need to find a way to operate in space despite another country trying to attack our space systems. Ben Baney is the program leader for space at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

I get a lot of questions about aliens, which is not what I work on. Not a thing. Space is the backbone of our modern world. Protecting satellites and space-based infrastructure from threats, from cyber attacks to physical challenges is a cornerstone of space security. It relies on advanced technologies and global collaboration to safeguard the critical systems that underpin our communication, navigation and national defense. I think for most people, space is this unseen set of capabilities, right?

It's way up there. You can't see what's going on, but there's something important happening, right? It's way up there. You can't see what's going on, but there's something important happening, right? There's something enabling happening there. That was the appealing thing about space, is really understanding. There's this whole world out there

that's very complicated and very technical, but also really important. This hidden complexity propels space development. Space is vast, mysterious, essential to how our world operates, and integral to modern life. Willem de Vries is an associate program leader for the Space Science and Security Program at Lawrence Livermore. Traffic management in space is a real need. And so you have systems on the ground tracking

objects as they move over, like with a radar. There's a lot of optical systems too, the little telescopes that track these things. And what our application is is basically little satellites from space doing the same thing as the ones on the ground. Awareness is the foundation of effective space management. Tracking objects in orbit ensures that traffic systems can operate safely and efficiently. We can talk about space domain awareness. So what is going on is a critical component. If you don't know what's going on or who is there or who's doing what, then even traffic management would be useless. So as more and more nations are fielding things in space or flying things,

and even the moon is getting crowded. Experts at Lawrence Livermore are developing advanced technologies that track objects, help secure systems and protect critical infrastructure. My program really focuses on space security. We also focus on building payloads for flight in space. So that could be a telescope, it could be some other subsystem that's gonna actually need to be built, tested, qualified,

and then to go to space flight. There are so many different actors in space, so many countries, so many private companies, and there's so many different types of satellites now, many, many, many thousands. The rapid growth in satellite launches has introduced new risks that require attention. People in the US military are very much worried about a future potential conflict with China in particular, but also potentially Russia.

Those are both very serious and long-standing spacefaring nations, right? China and Russia have been flying satellites in space for many decades. In 2021, China surpassed all other nations with a record 55 orbital launches. An orbital launch places a satellite, spacecraft, or other payload into a continuous path around the Earth. In the past two years, China has launched over 400 satellites, more than half for Earth observation. This pace demands effective space security measures. There are more and more things going on in deep space, in lunar orbit and beyond. The Chinese are also planning their own missions to the surface of the Moon. They already have

put rovers on the Moon, they just returned samples from the dark side of the moon. The Chinese have put a relay system around the moon to do communications. And so our need to understand what's going on further away from Earth is also growing. And this is something that we literally have never really done before. Back in the early 1980s, amid Cold War tensions, researchers at Lawrence Livermore, under the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative, pioneered innovative ways to defend the U.S. from missile threats. We did do a lot of space security work in the 80s at Livermore. It really started up under what was called the Strategic Defense Initiative. One groundbreaking project was Brilliant Pebbles, a network of small

autonomous satellites working together as a distributed missile defense system to detect and intercept incoming ballistic missiles through kinetic impact. The idea behind Brilliant Pebbles was to field a whole series of satellites in space that had interceptors on them. So this was like a vehicle in space that had a little sub satellite that would come out and that would be able to target a missile in flight and fly out and intercept it. So just run into it.

This was kind of the cornerstone of the Strategic Defense Initiative and it was executed at Livermore. Lawrence Livermore researchers created advanced sensors, optical systems and tracking capabilities that could reliably detect missile threats in the vastness of space. As the Cold War ended in the early 90s, the Strategic Defense Initiative slowed down. Sensors developed for brilliant pebbles were repurposed for NASA's

Clementine mission in 1994, which mapped the moon in higher resolution. I think it was the first time that we found ice on the lunar poles. After that, space work at the lab slowed down until China launched a missile in 2007. The 2007 Chinese Direct Ascent Anti-Satellite, or ASAT test, was a Chinese military operation in which a missile was launched from the ground to intercept and destroy one of China's own weather satellites in low orbit.

There was going to be a whole new set of demands from the US government about thinking about space security, thinking about how do we know what's going on in space, what we call space domain awareness. The test demonstrated China's ability to destroy satellites in space using ground-based kinetic missiles, and raised concerns about space security globally. The impact with the satellite created thousands of pieces of orbital debris, heightening risks for other space operations, and prompting renewed focus on space debris management and defense systems. Space is congested, competitive and carries complex and dangerous risks. For

example, kinetic weapons are missiles designed to destroy satellites. They shoot from the ground into space targeting a satellite and destroying it on impact. There are ground-based direct-ascent weapons which is a jargony term for basically a missile that you keep on the ground and then when you need it you shoot it into space generally pointed at a satellite that satellite that you're trying to target, it would then go up, have a sensor that would acquire that target and then literally just maneuver into the way and just kinetically impact it to destroy the satellite. Then there are nuclear weapons.

Remnants of the Cold War, when the US and the Soviets developed nuclear tipped interceptors for space. While they seem like relics of the past, they remain an extreme, but real threat. From the early days of the Cold War, the very first counter-space weapon systems that the US and the Soviets thought about were nuclear-tipped interceptors, right? And that's, I think, in a very extreme set of cases, still very much a concern. But physical attacks aren't the only threats. Cyberattacks pose a silent but potent threat, where hackers can remotely hijack or disable satellites causing widespread disruption to communication and navigation systems.

Electronic warfare adds another layer of complexity, with jamming techniques that cut off signals, leaving essential systems blind and vulnerable. You can inject information into the communications on a satellite. So if the satellite is what's called a bent pipe, so if it's essentially getting information and transmitting it back out, you could change the data in that data stream potentially. Satellites also have systems to send and receive commands. So these are essentially antennas that are used to communicate to the satellite to tell it to do things.

And so even in that kind of data stream, you can potentially get in there and give it spurious commands. And so you could actually also disrupt the satellite itself as opposed to the data stream that's going through it. So there's a wide variety of things in the space security bin, right? It's an incredibly broad topic. These dangers combine to make space a hazardous domain. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is at the forefront of defending space.

Space security begins on the ground with powerful simulations. With advanced modeling technology, researchers can create highly accurate virtual environments to predict potential space conflict scenarios and anticipate threats. We can use test capabilities, we can use modeling simulation capabilities on high-performance computing to simulate the effects of potential space weapons that we're concerned about. While simulations help predict threats and safeguard space assets, effective space security also depends on precise observation. Tracking objects in orbit requires advanced optical systems, and capturing clear images comes with challenges. We think of space as dark and empty, but in orbit, light is everywhere, and brightness is a major challenge for optical systems.

Here on Earth, where atmospheric scattering softens and spreads light, satellites in orbit experience direct, unfiltered exposure to the sun's intensity. This extreme brightness can overwhelm sensors, washing out images and reducing their ability to detect objects. You're flying around the Earth half of the time, half of your orbit, you're in the sun typically, so it's obviously pretty bright. So baffling, get the baffle around the aperture of the telescope is really important.

Baffles are structures that shield the optics from excess light and prevent glare from interfering with the sensors. Controlling excess light is crucial for capturing clear images in space. Another invisible force that can disrupt satellite operations is radiation. Beyond the steady brightness of the sun, powerful solar events can send bursts of charged particles hurtling toward Earth, interfering with satellites, communications, and essential systems on the ground. One of the things that can cause at least temporary outages is solar flares. There was one last year, a pretty violent one, a coronal mass ejection, and so a lot of particles come away.

mass ejection and so a lot of particles come our way. In May 2024, the Sun released a powerful solar flare, the strongest in years, along with a coronal mass ejection, which is a massive burst of solar particles and magnetic energy. When these particles hit Earth's atmosphere, they triggered an intense geomagnetic storm. The effects were widespread. Satellites experienced disruptions, radio signals were affected, and auroras lit up the skies in places where they're rarely seen. Events like this highlight the risks solar activity poses to our technology. Fortunately, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps constant watch, providing early warnings to help protect satellites and power grids from future solar storms. You see it actually happens, NASA has these solar dynamics observatories, satellite looking

at the sun, so go, well, something is coming. And then a day or so later, we get the blast. And again, those are all charged particles, and they basically charge everything up and satellites will either reboot or reset. When these high energy particles reach Earth, they can disrupt satellites and even force them into emergency shutdowns. There was actually an outage there, some GPS satellites, some other things got put offline for a little bit. Then things like your phone doesn't know where it is or the clocks start getting out of sync. And then things like banking and there's an amazing amount of interconnects there. Space disruptions interfere with navigation, banking and communication systems on Earth.

As more objects crowd orbit, monitoring them requires more than human oversight. Artificial intelligence now plays a critical role in identifying space debris and predicting potential collisions. If you can train something to recognize cats, then well, you can train something to recognize streaks. If a satellite moves through your field of view like a line, a streak.

So things like that. It's a very interesting, fruitful field for research. By processing data on board and sending down only the most critical information, AI reduces the strain on ground systems and enables real-time decision-making in space. Wouldn't it be nice if you just had an architecture out there of all these satellites looking decision-making in space. The race for space security is accelerating. As satellite systems grow more advanced, so do the methods to disrupt them. Lawrence Livermore is advancing AI-driven satellite tracking, quantum encryption, and rapid deploy optical systems to secure space and counter evolving

threats. We're able to cut through and see across these different disciplines to be able to bring solutions to the hardest problems and to bring those forward. Space is essential for exploration and for maintaining everyday systems. And space security ensures the stability and resilience of these critical networks by anticipating threats and staying ahead of emerging challenges. As space becomes more contested and complex, Lawrence Livermore's commitment to innovation

and protection will be crucial in ensuring the safety and stability of our interconnected world. If you loved what you heard, please let us know by leaving a rating and review. And if you haven't already, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app to keep up with our latest episode. Thanks for listening.