An incident response playbook for satellite operations on AWS (Part-2): Automated response and recovery

This article presents an incident response playbook for satellite operations on AWS, covering automated containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident procedures with runbooks and tabletop exercises.

• Split containment into immediate ground-segment actions and contact-window-dependent space-segment actions
• Use AWS Systems Manager and Step Functions to automate response workflows with human approval gates for high-impact decisions
• Implement three core runbooks: suspicious Ground Station API activity, telemetry anomaly escalation, and credential compromise
• Preserve evidence using S3 Object Lock and query logs with Athena and CloudWatch Logs Insights
• Conduct quarterly tabletop exercises covering unauthorized commands, ransomware, and telemetry manipulation scenarios
• Phased implementation roadmap from Week 1 CloudTrail activation through Quarter 1 full runbook deployment

The framework enables satellite operators to respond to security incidents within orbital pass constraints while maintaining mission continuity and meeting regulatory reporting obligations under NIS2 and SPD-5.