Attachment I_Statement of Objective for SSTI-SCCO.docx

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES

Space Strategic Technology Institute (SSTI): Space Cyber-Cognitive Overmatch

A. Overview

The United States Space Force (USSF) is establishing Space Strategic Technology Institutes (SSTIs) to address space science and technology (S&T) challenges through a network of partnered universities.[footnoteRef:2] The USSF goal is for the SSTIs to facilitate joint applied research and focus it on transformational space domain technology breakthroughs and developments that lead to the advancement of capabilities that can be transitioned and integrated into current and future USSF and U.S. Government space capabilities. It is highly desired for the research to lead to testbeds, high fidelity modeling and simulations, demonstrations, and prototypes. The research is expected to transition technology to higher technology readiness levels throughout the period of performance and out years will be awarded based on an evaluation of this ability. [2: For the purpose of this CALL, “University” is defined as, “a private, accredited, institution that grants advanced degrees.” This excludes organizations like the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) or the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) but not state schools or other similar university organizations. ]

The Space Cyber-Cognitive Overmatch (SCCO) SSTI will comprise a team of at least three universities (including the lead university). The team of universities in the SCCO SSTI are encouraged to collaborate with other universities and industry to address space research, development, and demonstration needs.

USSF plans to make the full award to the lead university submitting the proposal. This research institution will manage the research of any SCCO subtopics, such as those described in section C. The lead institution is responsible for distributing funds to team member institutions via subawards. At least 50% of SSTI awarded funds are required to go to the supporting institutions. It is also permissible for team member institutions to issue further subawards.

B. Statement of Objectives

The ultimate objective of this initiative is to create disruptive, cutting-edge technologies that fundamentally alter the strategic landscape of space operations. While proposed solutions must improve overall system resilience and strictly optimize size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints, their true value will be judged by their capacity to enable entirely new operational concepts. The goal is not seeking merely incremental upgrades; it is for transformative capabilities spanning the cyber and electromagnetic (EM) spectrums, the entire distributed architecture (space, ground, and links), and advanced human-machine teaming. Crucially, this disruption cannot come at the cost of current mission viability. For example, a novel cyber defense mechanism will be deemed unviable if its computational overhead degrades primary satellite operations. Consequently, proposals will be rigorously evaluated on two interconnected fronts: their potential to achieve true cognitive and cyber overmatch, and their realistic maturity for transitioning out of the laboratory and into government program offices or industry applications.

University teams proposing to SSTI #5 (Space Cyber-Cognitive Overmatch) should submit research aligned with their institution’s unique strengths and capabilities. The technical scope detailed in this document outlines the fundamental architectures and cognitive systems required to achieve this overmatch. These examples are not exhaustive and are intended to be non-prescriptive. Their purpose is to illustrate the broad focus areas, typical Science and Technology (S&T) challenges, and specific operational needs of the SSTI, providing proposers with a framework within which to innovate.

Proposing teams are strongly encouraged to incorporate horizon scanning and future technology vectors, conducting systematic assessments of emerging adversarial threats and potential technological surprises. Proposed solutions must explicitly define the current baseline and provide a clear explanation of why the proposed approach is superior to the current state-of-the-art. Teams must also address how known limitations, risks, or vulnerabilities associated with their proposed solutions will be mitigated. Furthermore, successful execution will require a highly multidisciplinary approach; collaborations should bridge diverse technical domains (e.g., aerospace engineering, artificial intelligence, quantum physics) while also integrating non-technical disciplines (e.g., cognitive psychology for human-machine trust, policy, or systems engineering) to address these complex challenges holistically.

In subsequent phases, this research ecosystem may expand to include additional partner universities, industry leaders, international allies, and key U.S. Government entities such as the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and other Department of Defense (DoD) laboratories. These government partnerships will be critical to the lifecycle of this research, as defense laboratories provide the deep operational context, end-user requirements, and established transition pathways necessary to apply these outcomes to the warfighter.

C. Description of Technical Area

The Space Cyber-Cognitive Overmatch SSTI will focus on technologies needed to ensure continued and enhanced capability across all space areas (including moons and planets) of U.S. military and civil operations. This list should be considered guidance, not restriction.

· Threat Sensing, Detection, and Adaptive Response

· Threat Characterization & Doctrinal Threats: Analyzing access vectors and understanding the application of the doctrinal "5 Ds" (Degrade, Disrupt, Deny, Deceive, Destroy) against space systems.

· Advanced Cyber Sensing: Developing sensing strategies, integrating trustworthy telemetry, and establishing performance metrics for threat detection (e.g., time to detect, false positive/negative rates).

· Data Authentication & Provenance: Identifying fraud, spoofing, deception, manipulation, and adversarial interference to ensure data origin is trusted across the architecture.

· Vulnerability Mitigation: Evaluating and mitigating hardware malfunctions, software vulnerabilities (e.g., "weird machines"), sensor denial, insider threats, and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

· Adaptive Response: Utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) to autonomously generate Courses of Action (COAs) and remediate threats in real-time across space, ground, and communication link segments.

· Cyber-Hardening, Protection, and Supply Chain Security

· Zero-Trust Architectures: Designing flexible architectures for future satellite constellation growth, employing strict access authorization that spans systems, sub-systems, and individual processes.

· Architectural Hardening: Building upon existing frameworks, such as the U.S. Space Force Cyber-Hardened Satellite Software (CHSS), to secure critical flight software—including Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)—for common satellite architectures.

· End-to-End Supply Chain Security: Implementing comprehensive tracking processes, asset management, and integrated protocols to secure hardware and software lifecycles from manufacture to deployment.

· Software-Level Isolation & Red-Teaming: Analyzing architectures for cyber-hardening effectiveness, developing quantifiable hardening metrics, and conducting rigorous adversarial testing (red-teaming).

· AI, Autonomy, and Cognitive Execution

· Autonomous Maneuver & Dynamic Operations: Enabling AI-driven planning, tasking, and dynamic space operations in scenarios where communication delays render human-only cognition insufficient.

· Data Triage & Knowledge Extraction: Utilizing cognitive systems to process vast amounts of raw data at the edge, extract actionable knowledge, and support enhanced decision-making.

· AI Model Resilience: Evaluating how AI/ML models degrade in the harsh space environment, fixing vulnerabilities stemming from hardware flaws, and preventing adversarial data injection into AI training sets.

· Human-to-Machine Teaming (HMT) & Cognitive Interfacing

· Advanced User Interfaces: Designing user experiences and data visualization tools specifically tailored to support seamless collaboration between human operators and autonomous systems.

· Task Loading & Efficiency: Developing technologies to safely reduce the cognitive burden on space system operators and improve the speed and efficiency of mission execution.

· Trust & Consequence Modeling: Establishing verifiable operator trust in machines and modeling the unintended consequences of transferring various levels of control to automated systems.

· Distributed Compute & Quantum Architectures

· Space-Based Data Centers: Deploying processing, storage, and validation capabilities in or near the operational environment (on-orbit) to enable low-latency, highly resilient operations.

· Interwoven Distributed Computing: Integrating cloud, fog, and edge computing models, alongside cloud communications optimized specifically for contested combat environments.

· Quantum Systems & Sensing: Exploring quantum information systems to enable advanced sensing, optimization, simulation, and future computational advantages over peer adversaries.

· Quantum-Secure Networks: Developing quantum networking, post-quantum cryptography, and quantum-secure links to ensure command and control networks cannot be decrypted by future classical or quantum computing attacks.

· Cognitive Electronic Warfare (EW) & Space-Enabled Cyber Tools

· Cognitive Electronic Warfare: Deploying predictive systems that adapt to emerging electromagnetic threats through reconfigurable radio-frequency spectrum use and real-time deconfliction.

· Combined Cyber-EW Hardening: Developing capabilities and architectures specifically hardened against combined, multi-domain cyber and electronic warfare attacks (e.g., simultaneous hacking and jamming).

· Space-Enabled Cyber Effects: Developing algorithms or approaches that primarily utilize space systems to execute, or defend against, effects within the cyber and electromagnetic domains.

· Digital Engineering, Modeling, and Test & Evaluation (T&E)

· Flexible Testbeds: Designing developmental and operational testbeds capable of supporting diverse mission sets and safely evaluating multiple cyber defense approaches.

· Digital Engineering: Utilizing Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) for system-of-systems integration, capability design, and rapid architecture prototyping.

· Advanced Disruption Modeling: Developing high-fidelity physical and logical models that incorporate Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) to accurately simulate complex system disruptions, such as compounding hardware and software faults.

Interested offerors may propose additional technologies related to the technical areas listed above, that bolster R&D innovation, increase the maturity and market readiness of DoD relevant technologies to prepare them for transfer and commercialization that support DoD needs.