Exploiting Payloads

In all cases, a threat to the space vehicle itself is likely to disrupt the mission of any payload as well. Threats to missions on the other hand have little to do with the type of space vehicle the mission is being conducted from and are almost always specific to aspects of the mission itself and the payload that performs it. This means that threats to missions are as diverse and numerous as there are types of missions that can be conjured up for execution aboard space vehicles in space. There are certainly categories of mission types that face similar threats to successful execution. Where cyber-attacks against the space vehicle itself would almost certainly be immediately noticeable by the operators of that space system, cyber-attacks seeking to affect the mission by realizing threats which are specific to that mission may be much more surreptitious in nature and not noticed by those operating the space vehicle for long periods of time following the attack, if ever.