Space Cybersecurity | Cyber Operations | Systems Engineering
I'm a computer scientist and cybersecurity engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. My current focus is on cyber resilience for space systems.
Most of my work spans systems engineering and software security -- making spacecraft flight software resistant to intelligent adversaries, not just hardware faults.
Areas of Interest
- Space Systems Cybersecurity - Security architectures for satellites, ground systems, and cislunar infrastructure
- Secure Software Engineering - Building software with safer languages and verified implementations
- Trustworthy Systems Engineering - Systems-level assurance through requirements analysis, resilience engineering, and realistic testing
- Intersection of Cyber and Space Operations - Ensuring space operators can trust that their systems will operate in a cyber-contested environment
- Theoretical Computer Science - Programming language theory, type theory, and advanced formal methods
- Amateur Astronomy - Understanding the universe from my backyard, and contributing amateur observations to professional research
News
- Jan 2026 — Presented at NASA Core Flight System Symposium; panelist on "Secure Flight Software" and "The Future of cFS in Government"
- Dec 2025 — Presented at Cislunar Security Conference, JHU IAA Lightning Talks, and HMT Workshop
- Nov 2025 — Panelist at CyberSat Summit on "Cyber Resilience in the Launch Era"
- Jul 2025 — Two papers presented at IEEE SMC-IT 2025: Alcyone and Cislunar Cyber Resilience
- Mar 2025 — Presented "Testable Cyber Requirements for Space Flight Software" at IEEE Aerospace Conference
Selected Publications
- J. Curbo and G. Falco, "Cyber Resilience in Cislunar Space: Security Strategies for Large-Scale Space Infrastructure," 2025. Preprint
- J. Curbo and G. Falco, "Alcyone: A Blueprint for Secure Rust Flight Software," 2025. Preprint
- J. Curbo and G. Falco, "Testable Cyber Requirements for Space Flight Software," in Proc. 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2025. IEEE Xplore
Recent Posts
Paper Summary: Cyber Resilience for Cislunar Space
This post summarizes my 2025 IEEE SMC-IT paper "Cyber Resilience in Cislunar Space: Security Strategies for Large-Scale Space Infrastructure" co-authored with Gregory Falco.
A round-trip signal to the Moon takes approximately 2.56 seconds. For assets at Earth-Moon Lagrange points, it's longer. That number sounds small until you think about …
Paper Summary: Choosing a Runtime for Secure Rust Flight Software
This post summarizes my 2025 IEEE SMC-IT paper "Alcyone: A Blueprint for Secure Rust Flight Software" co-authored with Gregory Falco.
When I wrote about the attack surface of cFS and RTEMS, the natural follow-up question was: what would you build instead? Alcyone is our answer, or at least the start …
Paper Summary: Testable Cyber Requirements for Flight Software
This post summarizes my 2025 IEEE Aerospace Conference paper "Testable Cyber Requirements for Space Flight Software" co-authored with Gregory Falco.
Nobody can test "the system shall be secure." It checks a compliance box, but a test engineer reading it has nothing to work with. What does "secure" mean? Against what …
Paper Summary: The cFS Attack Surface, from the Bottom Up
This post summarizes my 2024 IEEE SMC-IT paper "Attack Surface Analysis for Spacecraft Flight Software" co-authored with Gregory Falco.
There's a principle from formal verification of financial algorithms that stuck with me: you cannot properly reason about the behavior of a system higher in the stack unless you have verified …
Paper Summary: A Research Agenda for Flight Software Security
This post summarizes my 2023 IEEE SMC-IT paper "A Research Agenda for Space Flight Software Security" co-authored with Gregory Falco.
When I started my dissertation research, I went looking for the academic literature on flight software security. I found policy papers about space being a contested domain, a growing body …