Publications
Designing a Cyber Situational Awareness Application for Space Missions
This paper and supplement was accepted as a poster at CHI 2026, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Barcelona, Spain.
Developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CyberSAM is a mission-centric cyber defense tool that uses Human-Centered Design to simplify threat detection for space missions. By utilizing a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach, the system reduced operator cognitive workload by 31% and context-switching by 40%, significantly accelerating incident response times. This approach ensures that mission operators can take decisive action against threats without being overwhelmed by complex data.
* NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Califronia Institute of Technology
† Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence
- Authors:
- Joyce Croft*
- Arun Viswanathan*
- David A. Shamma†
- Deniz Celik*
Abstract
Effective cyber situational awareness is crucial for protecting critical space missions from advanced threats. We developed a novel capability called CyberSAM at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that integrates cyber threat detection with mission objectives, stakeholder needs, operational constraints, and spacecraft ground system use cases. This enables mission operators to quickly receive relevant insights for decisive action, enhancing mission success and increasing response time during critical events. CyberSAM's core innovation lies in its systematic Human-Centered Design (HCD)process, which engineers a mission-centric cyber situational awareness system that trades complexity for usability. By prioritizing user experience, CyberSAM provides an intuitive interface that reduces cognitive load for operators, achieving a 31% reduction in cognitive workload, reduces context-switching costs by 40%, and measurably improves incident response time during mission operations. The implementation of a scalable design system further reduced development time by 38% when onboarding new missions, ensuring consistency across mission applications while accelerating deployment. This case study discusses our insights building CyberSAM with a human-centered approach, highlighting the challenges encountered, measurable operational gains, and lessons learned in developing a cyber-defense solution for high-stakes space missions.
