The first hands-on field manual for breaking real space systems, written by practitioners who do this work for a living.The Spacecraft Hacker’s Handbook takes security professionals through the full attack surface of a modern space system: the ground stations that send commands, the flight software running on the spacecraft, and the satellite terminals on the ground that consume the signal. Andrzej Olchawa and Milenko Starcik walk readers through real vulnerabilities they’ve found in the open-source software that runs actual missions, including NASA’s Core Flight System, JPL’s F´, Yamcs, OpenC3 COSMOS, and SLE. By the final chapters, readers are spoofing GPS, reverse-engineering modem firmware, and crashing flight software with malicious telecommands inside a containerized lab they build along the way.
Readers will learn how to:
- Reason about space systems as three interlocking attack surfaces: ground, space, and user segment
- Speak the protocols missions actually run on, including CCSDS Space Packet, PUS, TM/TC, SDLS, and SLE
- Find and exploit real vulnerabilities in mission control software (Yamcs, OpenC3 COSMOS, F´ GDS)
- Crash and probe onboard flight software running on cFS and F´ using debuggers, fuzzing, and crafted telecommands
- Reverse-engineer satellite modem firmware and reproduce the techniques behind the 2022 Viasat KA-SAT attack
- Jam and spoof GNSS signals using software-defined radio
- Build a repeatable, containerized lab for ongoing space security research
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