Development of encrypted communication over the NTU nanosatellite

• Main Author: Liu, Wen Sheng
• Other Authors: Erry Gunawan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75234
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In the past, intercepting satellite communication was deemed as impractical due to the need for the precise location of the satellite and powerful antenna receivers, hence encryption for satellite communication were usually not implemented. As more and more satellites are launched each year, interception of satellite communication gets easier due to the higher number of satellites orbiting in space. Research have shown that even antenna built using readily available materials and power tools is able to receive satellite communication data hence giving rise to a greater need for encrypted satellite communication. [1] The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) was selected as the encryption algorithm in this project. The AES was designed to be fast, easy to implement and light on the processor which is ideal for low powered processors used on board satellites. [2] The AES is also a popular standard that is proven to be secure and currently do not have any practical cryptanalysis. It supports keys up to 256-bits which is currently more than enough for a secure encryption. The popularity of this open source standard has also provided many different modes of AES such as Cipher Block Chianing (CBC) or Counter (CTR) which are also standardized to suit different needs. AES being a block cipher makes it compatible with message authentication algorithm which can prevent malicious codes to be injected into the encrypted data sent to the satellite.