[robszumski]

Can anyone share articles about how these satellites are _managed_ remotely by their administrators, and the security around those connections?

I know newer entrants like Planet Labs run normal Linux on their satellites, and I assume use a normal SSH connection. What do the older platforms use? How do they move the key material around to the different ground stations?

[tonyarkles]

I'm really hoping that the specific name of the software package comes to mind. There's a super old ground terminal command & data handling (C&DH) package that is very very common. It runs on Linux, and has a UI that looks like it's written using Motif.

I haven't worked in the space industry for almost 10 years now, but that was everywhere when I was there. And I'm hoping that the name will come to mind over the next few hours and I can edit this post :)

Edit: Success! ITOS: http://itos.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.php