Trust Without Boundaries: An Architectural Analysis of Satellite Flight Software
2026-08-14 • Cryptography and Security
Cryptography and Security
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied the security of NASA's Core Flight Software (cFS), which runs spacecraft systems and treats all onboard components as equally trusted. They found that if one part gets hacked, it can misuse its access to do bad things without being easily noticed. By testing in a NASA simulator, they showed how these weaknesses happen and compared cFS to other software frameworks with similar issues. They suggest ways future spacecraft software can be designed to better protect important parts from being misused internally.
Core Flight Software (cFS)onboard flight softwaresoftware architecturesecurity boundaryaccess controlmodular software frameworkstrust assumptionssimulator NOS3internal isolationauthority distribution
Authors
Jack Vanlyssel, Gruia-Catalin Roman, Kendra Cook, Sazzadur Rahaman, Afsah Anwar
Abstract
As spacecraft become more software-driven and interconnected, onboard flight software is an increasingly important security boundary. Popular flight software architectures often treat onboard components as trusted peers, simplifying integration while limiting internal isolation and access control. We analyze NASA's Core Flight Software (cFS) to examine how authority, identity, communication, observability, and persistence are distributed across onboard components. Using NASA's flight-representative NOS3 simulator, we validate these weaknesses through five experiments implemented with a malicious onboard component that abuses legitimate architectural privileges. We then compare cFS with other modular flight software frameworks to identify recurring trust assumptions and architectural weaknesses. Our results show that a single compromised component can exploit broadly shared authority in ways that are difficult to distinguish from legitimate behavior. We conclude with architectural implications and discuss mechanisms for strengthening internal trust boundaries in future flight software systems.