Dave Baiocchi

Satellite anomalies are mission-degrading events that negatively affect on-orbit operational spacecraft. Maintaining a widely accessible and comprehensive database is one way to build an understanding of what situations are likely to result in satellite anomalies, but no such database exists. This report describes the nature and causes of satellite anomalies, and the potential benefits of a shared and centralized satellite anomaly database.

This report examines the feasibility of using modern cryptographic tools to improve space situational awareness. Specifically, the authors examine the applicability of secure multi-party computation (MPC) protocols as a means to compute the collision probability of two satellites. MPC protocols would provide satellite operators with a way to compute such conjunction analyses while maintaining the privacy of each operator s orbital information."

This report relates what professionals believe creates surprise, how they respond to it, and how the effects of surprise can be mitigated. RAND researchers interviewed representatives from 13 diverse professions and identified some common coping strategies, such as relying on past experience and trying to reduce the level of chaos in the environment.

To help the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) become more flexible and agile in an increasingly uncertain world, RAND sought answers to two key questions: Would the NRO benefit from building modular satellites? What lessons might be drawn from how chief executive officers, military personnel, and health care professionals (among others) respond to surprise?

Orbital space debris represents a growing threat to the operation of man-made systems in space. With the goal of guiding future mitigation or remediation efforts, this monograph examines nine comparable problems that share similarities with orbital debris: acid rain, U. S. commercial airline security, asbestos, chlorofluorocarbons, hazardous waste, oil spills, radon, email spam, and U. S. border control.