Japan to develop a special communication system to prevent cyber attacks on satellites

Tokyo : Japan is considering to develop a special system that will prevent – cyber attacks on the space satellites. This system will materialize with the joint efforts of Japanese Government, private companies and academic institutions. Sources claim that the system, developed with the aim to provide space security to Japan, will be functional in the next five years.

Japan’s space mission, launched to collect the interstellar garbage, failed. However, Japan’s space organization explained some different reasons behind this failure. It is noted that some of the US satellites launched previously failed due to cyber attacks. While there are enough actions taken to prevent cyber attacks on earth, the countermeasures against cyber attacks on satellites have been progressing slowly.

On this background, Japanese Government’s proposal has grabbed attention. Japanese Government’s ‘Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry’ has taken initiative for the same. In order to prevent cyber attacks in space, a special communication system will be developed with the aid of academic institutions as well as private industries.

According to the plan, the system will feature ‘dynamic encryption’ of data transfers between satellites and their terrestrial stations, thus preventing the cyber attacks on satellites. It is claimed that it will be more difficult to decode such data even when it is intercepted by unauthorized parties. The system will be designed to transmit codes using ‘lasers’ and code generators on satellites.

Along with the prevention of cyber attacks on satellites, the proposed plan claims to establish a secure communication network in Japan. Sources predict that this plan could play an important role in channeling new investments in the aerospace industry of Japan.

Last August, China launched the ‘Quantum Satellite’ in an effort to harness the power of ‘particle physics’ to build an ‘unhackable’ system of encrypted communications. Chinese scientists had proposed a system using particles called ‘photons’ for the encrypted communications in space.

Currently, satellites send data to the terrestrial base stations using radio waves.