CANEUS-Shared Small Satellites CSSP (Collective Security, Safety, and Prosperity) International Workshop

Vision

The vision for this international workshop is in line with national and international Cooperative Security strategies to promote safety, security, protection of the environment, and global economic development. Our national commitment to engagement is manifest in programs and projects across all dimensions of international relations.

The proposed international capability would contribute a data transport “space segment” accessible to all countries through “fractional ownership” in the satellite constellation. While the ability of developing nations to contribute funds may be limited, the concept of fractional ownership would allow each country to participate at a level commensurate with their capabilities, and to use the shared communications backbone in space in some measure commensurate with their contribution to the program.

To the extent that data delivered through such international capability are shared, as AIS data from land-based receivers are now shared, participating nations become part of a new global security network by reducing the ease with which “unwired” areas become “ungoverned.” Space, with the “God’s Eye” view of the world, unites nations more than any other domain.

Creation of such an international system would make collaboration in space accessible to all nations, and would promote its use to foster governance in the difficult, “unwired” regions of the world.

The satellite constellation, when fully populated, would host communications payloads chosen to foster awareness of activity in “unwired” areas of the globe, and to enable better governance based on that awareness.

Examples of the kind of information that might use such capability as a transmission path could include: ships’ automatic identification system (AIS) signals from the open ocean, environmental data from sensors in the polar regions and deserts, seismic sensors indicating activity in the rain forests and border regions of the world. The proposed constellation of satellites would provide nearly continuous coverage of the entire globe for low bandwidth data streams, and it would be available to all countries, large and small, which participate as members of the consortium.

Objectives

The CANEUS Shared SmallSat CSSP International Workshop aims to:

• Provide participants and potential stakeholders with an interactive, in-depth assessment of current end-user requirements for AIS and data exfiltration to support short term and potential long term requirements, including potential new applications. This assessment would also help identify and address outstanding issues with current AIS and data exfiltration systems, such as, safety, security, privacy, infrastructure care and feeding cost, policies on data sharing, vulnerabilities to interference, reliability, and authentication.
• Present program factors with the active participation and contributions of attendees to articulate data gathering, data handling, and data distribution concepts; Small Sat Constellation Systems and Technologies; AIS and data exfiltration Applications.
• Facilitate international partnership by addressing challenges to collaborative framework models. Issues to be discussed include: proposed data formats, assigned frequencies and bandwidth; legal policies and considerations; regulatory considerations; and proposed Consortium scope, structure, roadmap and ROM funding.

The CANEUS CSSP International Workshop has a unique flow-down format which emphasizes, as its primary deliverable, an international framework for joining the Shared SmallSat undertaking as a stakeholder; the issues, costs and benefits involved; what prospective stakeholders can expect to gain by participation, as well as the potential business model.