Space Fabric: A Satellite-Enhanced Trusted Execution Architecture

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 24 Mar 2026] Space Fabric: A Satellite-Enhanced Trusted Execution Architecture Filip Rezabek, Dahlia Malkhi, Amir Yahalom The emergence of decentralized satellite networks creates a pressing need for trust architectures that operate without physical access to hardware, without pre-provisioned vendor secrets, and without dependence on a single manufacturer's attestation service. Terrestrial TEEs are insufficient: hardware-based designs are susceptible to physical attacks, and most platforms root their attestation chains in secrets provisioned during manufacturing, creating a pre-launch trust window and single-vendor dependency that cannot be independently audited. We present Space Fabric, an architecture that provides the missing trust foundation for orbital computing by relocating the trusted computing stack to satellite infrastructure, exploiting post-launch physical inaccessibility as a tamper barrier unattainable by terrestrial deployments. Our Satellite Execution Assurance Protocol binds workload execution to a specific satellite via a Byzantine-tolerant endorsement quorum of distributed ground stations, certifying not only \emph{what} executes inside the TEE but also \emph{where}. All cryptographic secrets are generated within co-located secure elements after launch, with no signing keys accessible on Earth at any point. To reduce single-vendor dependence, Space Fabric distributes its trust anchor across two independent secure elements, an NXP SE050 and a TROPIC01, both of which must co-sign attestation evidence. We implement Space Fabric on a USB Armory Mk II with ARM TrustZone, verify attestation end-to-end using Veraison, and provide a security analysis with satisfaction arguments and impossibility bounds under a strong adaptive adversary. Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) Cite as: arXiv:2603.23745 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2603.23745v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.23745 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Filip Rezabek [view email] [v1] Tue, 24 Mar 2026 22:13:02 UTC (405 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)