SPD-5 (Space Policy Directive)
SPD-5 establishes key cybersecurity principles to guide and serve as the foundation for America’s approach to the cyber protection of space systems.
- Space systems enable key functions such as global communications; positioning, navigation and timing; scientific observation; exploration; weather monitoring; and multiple vital national defense applications.
- These systems, networks, and channels can be vulnerable to malicious activities that can deny, degrade, or disrupt space operations, or even destroy a satellite.
- It is essential to protect space systems from cyber incidents in order to prevent disruptions to their ability to provide reliable and efficient contributions to the operations of the Nation’s critical infrastructure.
- Space Policy Directive-5 fosters practices within U.S. Government and commercial space operations that protect space assets and their supporting infrastructure from cyber threats.
- SPD-5 furthers the policies and objectives of the National Security Strategy, the National Cyber Strategy, and SPD-3 (National Space Traffic Management Policy) to ensure the Nation maintains its leadership and freedom of action in space.
- It provides guidance on the protection of space assets and supporting infrastructure from evolving cyber threats and mitigates the potential for the creation of harmful space debris resulting from malicious cyber activities.