An On-Orbit Data Marketplace for Distributed Space Domain Awareness

Abstract

Modern space vehicles capture a wealth of sensor data that is in high-demand by a wide range of commercial and nation-state beneficiaries. This data can be used to monitor our planet, monitor space traffic and manage collision avoidance, among other use cases. While there is ongoing investment into cross-linking satellite constellations and building an ‘on-orbit internet’, it remains unclear how the integral requesting and delivery of this data will be facilitated. We propose a distributed marketplace for space domain awareness that engages smart contracts and a distributed ledger to manage the engagement of satellites across an untrusted ecosystem. Furthermore, this work implements a simulated on-orbit marketplace consisting of independent nodes able to efficiently and securely exchange data and services under a series of representative scenarios. The marketplace software payload was designed to conform to the power and compute constraints of a modern space vehicle while implementing secure smart contracting and format-preserving validation techniques, demonstrating the practical viability of the on-orbit marketplace as a concept.