Overview
T.E.M.P.E.S.T is a purposefully vulnerable 1U CubeSat that has been designed from the ground up for the purpose of not only teaching fundamental elements of space systems, but to do so with the focus on cybersecurity. To our knowledge, it’s the first platform of its kind — both in purpose and in hardware.
The current build is a flat-sat: the same electronics, subsystems, radios, and command paths a 1U CubeSat would carry, laid out on a bench so students can put probes on it, break it, and put it back together.
Why we built it
Space cybersecurity courses have historically split into two camps: simulators that abstract away the interesting failure modes, and real spacecraft that are too precious to attack. TEMPEST is designed to sit in between them.
- Real enough to be honest. Actual flight-relevant subsystems, real RF, real command and telemetry paths. What students learn transfers.
- Vulnerable on purpose. Common weaknesses in ground software, link protocols, and onboard subsystems are baked in, waiting to be found.
- Expendable enough to be useful. Reset, reflash, or replace. Nothing on a flat-sat is precious.
What’s in the platform
The full architecture, command protocol, telemetry format, ground-station interface, and troubleshooting guide are documented in depth at tempest.ethoslabs.space.
- Sensor MCU: RP2040
- Radio: RFM69
- Command / telemetry: a fully-documented protocol students can pull apart and re-implement
- Ground station: interface and quickstart guide included in the docs
- Labs: hands-on exercises across attack and defense
What you can do with it
Use it in a classroom, on your own bench, or as the target of a red-team exercise. TEMPEST is built to be poked. Attack the ground station, replay the uplink, tamper with telemetry, compromise the sensor MCU — whatever failure mode you want to reason about, the platform lets you actually reproduce it.
Open source
Plans are in motion to open-source both the PCB designs and the various software components used across the platform. Watch the docs site for updates, or reach out if you’d like to be involved earlier.