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FUNCTION 05 FUNCTION 04 FUNCTION 03 FUNCTION 02 CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS FUNCTION 01
Function One
CONCEPT OF
OPERATIONS

Master Decomposition.

“The adversary suffers when you know your platform better than they ever can.”

Organizations must have a deeper understanding of their platforms than the adversaries targeting them, from development to decommissioning.

FUNCTION ONE · MOD 01
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Learn, Apply, Build, Simulate · KSAT alignment for Module 01

LABS Learning Objectives.

Module 01 hands-on objectives. Each row maps a LABS component to its KSAT type, (L)EARN to Knowledge, (A)PPLY to Skill, (B)UILD to Ability, (S)IMULATE to Task, so the exam at the end of the module assesses the same competencies the labs build.

LABS Component KSAT Type Statement
(L)EARNKnowledgeKnowledge of the five-layer data model (PCE, SEG, SVC, AST, AN), the parent-child ontology that links them, and the taxonomy-element vs enumerated-element distinction.
(L)EARNKnowledgeKnowledge of the five core fields on every enumerated element (LAYER, ELEMENT, LABEL, ORDINAL, DESCRIPTION) and the per-layer additions (PARENT, DISTRIBUTED, SUBSYSTEM, TARGET).
(A)PPLYSkillSkill in decomposing a platform into PCE, SEG, SVC, and AST enumerated elements, working top-down so each child can name its parent.
(A)PPLYSkillSkill in writing identifiers correctly in both forms: hyphenated taxonomy element (e.g., PCE-OR) and full colon-form enumerated element (e.g., PCE: OR: Orbital: 00 with description).
(B)UILDAbilityAbility to validate the parent-child ontology end-to-end, every AST traces to a SVC, every SVC to a SEG, every SEG to a PCE, with no orphans.
(S)IMULATETaskProduce a complete CONOPS structural decomposition for a sample LEO platform: every PCE, SEG, SVC, and AST enumerated, parent links populated, ready for F02 to overlay threats.
FUNCTION ONE · MOD 01
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Foundations 1 of 8

ONE DATA MODEL, ONE LANGUAGE.

Defenders, threat hunters, detection engineers, IR teams, and partner organizations describe the same platform in different vocabularies. The METEORSTORM data model replaces those parallel dialects with a single, machine-readable structure that every function and every community speaks.

▷ WHAT THE DATA MODEL ANSWERS

Where, what, and how does the platform exist, and how do my findings attach to it? Every element sits in one of four structural layers and carries a parent-trace back to its physical environment.

▷ WHY IT MATTERS

Once the platform is enumerated in the model, a detection that fires on an asset is automatically traceable to its service, segment, and environment, no vocabulary translation, no community-specific re-mapping.

▷ THE FOUR STRUCTURAL LAYERS
OFFICIAL MISP TAXONOMY · meteorstorm
PCE PRIMARY CAPABILITY ENVIRONMENT LAYER

Operational zone in which a capability primarily exists or is exercised.

SEG SEGMENT LAYER

Service and asset enclaves that compose the system across environments.

SVC SERVICE LAYER

Functional planes that organize control and data responsibilities.

AST ASSET LAYER

Asset classes composing the system and its interfaces.

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Foundations 2 of 8 · Vocabulary & structure

TAXONOMY AND ONTOLOGY.

The data model is built from two complementary languages. Taxonomy fixes the vocabulary, the words you are allowed to use. Ontology fixes the relationships between the things named by that vocabulary. The framework needs both.

RULEA taxonomy without an ontology is a glossary. An ontology without a taxonomy is structure with nothing to fill it. METEORSTORM uses both so each enumerated element is both named and placed.
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Foundations 3 of 8 · The decomposition stack

FOUR STRUCTURAL LAYERS, ONE ANALYTIC OVERLAY.

This module covers the four structural layers, the parts of the platform you decompose. The fifth layer, the Analytic Layer, sits on top of those four and carries what defenders observe and build. We introduce it here and use it throughout Modules 02 through 05.

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Foundations 4 of 8 · How a single enumerated element is built

FIVE FIELDS, EVERY ENUMERATED ELEMENT.

An enumerated element is one specific instance on your platform, a particular ground station, a particular service, a particular asset. Every enumerated element, at any layer, uses the same five core fields. Once you know these five, the rest of Module 01 is just variations on this single shape. (The shorter taxonomy element form, the abstract category, is covered next.)

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Foundations 5 of 8 · Taxonomy element vs. enumerated element

ONE ELEMENT, TWO FORMS.

Every element appears in two forms. A taxonomy element names the category, written hyphenated, e.g. PCE-OR (any orbital environment). An enumerated element names one specific instance on your platform, written with all five fields, e.g. PCE: OR: Orbital: 00, “Our LEO constellation orbit.” Use the hyphen form when you mean “any of these”; use the full form when you mean “this exact one.”

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Foundations 6 of 8 · How the layers link, ontological relationships

PARENT IS HOW THE LAYERS LINK.

An ontology element is the wiring between two enumerated elements, the link that says “this thing belongs to that thing.” In METEORSTORM, the ontology element is the PARENT field. Every enumerated element below the top of the tree names its parent, and together those ontological relationships build one platform tree that any finding can be traced through. There are exactly three structural relationships: PCE → SEG (each segment’s parent is an environment), SEG → SVC (each service’s parent is a segment), and SVC → AST (each asset’s parent is a service). PCE sits at the top and has no parent, it is the root.

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Foundations 7 of 8 · How to add an element, and the order to add them in

BUILD TOP-DOWN, STEP BY STEP.

Decompose your platform top-down: enumerate every PCE first, then every SEG, then every SVC, and finally every AST. Each child element needs its parent enumerated first, otherwise the PARENT link has nowhere to point. Within each element, the seven-step procedure below is identical at every layer; only which steps apply changes (PCE has no PARENT; SVC adds DISTRIBUTED; AST adds optional SUBSYSTEM).

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Foundations 8 of 8 · Writing strong descriptions

ANNOTATION.

Taxonomy gives the element a name. Ontology gives it a position. Annotation, the DESCRIPTION field, is what makes the element useful to downstream functions. A weak description forces the next analyst to re-derive context the original enumerator already knew.

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Layer 1 of 4 · Decomposition begins here

PCE, PRIMARY CAPABILITY ENVIRONMENT.

PCE is the root of decomposition. It captures the physical environment in which the platform, or some portion of it, operates. Every other entry in the model, every segment, service, asset, traces back through parent references to one or more PCE instances.

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PCE-TE · Element 1 of 5 · Primary Capability Environment

TERRESTRIAL.

Surface-based operational zones on planetary bodies. Captures the physical real estate, regulatory jurisdiction, and terrestrial weather context for any portion of the platform anchored to a planet or moon’s surface.

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PCE-AQ · Element 2 of 5 · Primary Capability Environment

AQUATIC.

Water-based operational zones, including maritime surface, sub-surface, and littoral environments. Captures the portion of a platform that floats on, sails through, or operates beneath the water column.

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PCE-AE · Element 3 of 5 · Primary Capability Environment

AERIAL.

Atmospheric operational zones spanning low altitude, high altitude, and near-space regions of a planetary atmosphere. Aerial PCE captures the medium; segments later refine the altitude band an asset actually lives in.

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PCE-OR · Element 4 of 5 · Primary Capability Environment

ORBITAL.

Operational zones within planetary or satellite orbits, from LEO through GEO and lunar orbit. Anything held in orbit by the gravity of a single primary body lives here.

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PCE-DS · Element 5 of 5 · Primary Capability Environment

DEEP SPACE.

Operational zones beyond planetary orbital regimes, interplanetary cruise, Lagrange points, asteroid encounters, and trans-lunar space. The distinguishing test is gravitational dominance: when no single primary body controls the trajectory, the asset is in deep space.

FUNCTION ONE · MOD 01
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Layer 2 of 4 · The adversary’s view of the platform

SEG, SEGMENT.

SEG decomposes the platform along the operational lines an adversary would use when selecting a target. Each segment is an enclave of services and assets that play one architectural role, launch, link, ground, user, space, and so on, within one or more PCE environments.

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SEG-LA · Element 1 of 10 · Segment

LAUNCH.

Surface-based services and assets dedicated to primary launch operations, the people, hardware, software, and procedures that put the platform into the air or into orbit.

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SEG-LI · Element 2 of 10 · Segment

LINK.

Services and assets that enable platform communications across signal paths, RF, optical, or hard-wired. Link is the connective tissue of the platform, and one of the adversary’s primary kill-chain choke points.

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SEG-GR · Element 3 of 10 · Segment

GROUND.

Surface-based services and assets that form the primary control-plane locus for the platform, the operational center of gravity for command, monitoring, and mission planning.

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SEG-US · Element 4 of 10 · Segment

USER.

Services and assets that serve primary end-user operations, the destination for the platform’s mission product. User segment captures the consumption side of the platform, distinct from the operator-side Ground segment.

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SEG-AQ · Element 5 of 10 · Segment

AQUATIC.

Water-based services and assets dedicated to primary platform operations. The segment-level counterpart to PCE-AQ: PCE-AQ is the environment, SEG-AQ is the operational role being played in that environment.

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SEG-LO · Element 6 of 10 · Segment

LOW ALTITUDE.

Aerial services and assets operating in the lower atmosphere, typically below the upper bound of civil aviation. Captures drones, comms aircraft, and chase platforms that share airspace with civilian flight operations.

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SEG-HI · Element 7 of 10 · Segment

HIGH ALTITUDE.

Aerial services and assets operating above the lower atmosphere but below near space, the regime of stratospheric balloons, U-class observation aircraft, and long-endurance solar UAVs.

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SEG-NE · Element 8 of 10 · Segment

NEAR SPACE.

Aerial services and assets above high altitude but below orbital regions, the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Home to HAPS (High-Altitude Platform Stations) and persistent stratospheric relays.

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SEG-SP · Element 9 of 10 · Segment

SPACE.

Services and assets operating in planetary or satellite orbits, the on-orbit element of the platform. The most familiar segment in classical space-systems decomposition, but here it is one role among ten, not the whole sky.

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SEG-DE · Element 10 of 10 · Segment

DEEP SPACE.

Services and assets operating beyond planetary orbital regimes. Captures mission elements that live in interplanetary space, at Lagrange points, or beyond lunar orbit, where communication latency, DSN scheduling, and autonomy dominate the threat model.

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Layer 3 of 4 · What the platform does

SVC, SERVICE.

SVC decomposes the functional capabilities the platform delivers across its segments. The taxonomy is deliberately compact, three values, so the model stays stable while permitting organization-specific nesting beneath. A service that runs across more than one segment stays a single element marked DISTRIBUTED: Y.

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SVC-CP · Element 1 of 3 · Service

CONTROL PLANE.

Services for managing and orchestrating platform control functions, command, monitoring, configuration, telemetry processing, fault detection. Control plane services move command and state, not mission product.

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SVC-DP · Element 2 of 3 · Service

DATA PLANE.

Services for managing and orchestrating mission-product functions, payload processing, data product generation, downstream delivery. Data plane services move what the mission exists to produce.

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SVC-HY · Element 3 of 3 · Service

HYBRID.

Services that integrate both control-plane and data-plane functionality in a single coherent capability. Reserved for cases where the two planes genuinely cannot be separated without distorting the architecture.

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Layer 4 of 4 · Where detection & response actually happen

AST, ASSET.

AST decomposes the concrete elements that implement services. Six material categories cover the full surface of a complex platform, hardware, firmware, software, data, signal, and hybrid composites. Optional SUBSYSTEM groups assets that jointly deliver a single service.

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AST-HW · Element 1 of 6 · Asset

HARDWARE.

Physical elements supporting platform operations, electronic, mechanical, optical, electromagnetic. The tangible parts of the platform that can be inventoried, photographed, and physically touched.

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AST-FW · Element 2 of 6 · Asset

FIRMWARE.

Embedded control code governing hardware functions, code that ships with hardware, runs at boot, and lives below the operating system. Firmware is a frequent supply-chain attack surface and one of the hardest layers to patch in the field.

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AST-SW · Element 3 of 6 · Asset

SOFTWARE.

Applications and logic executing operational tasks, user-mode, kernel-mode, container, microservice. Software runs above firmware and delivers service-level capability, the layer where most of the vulnerability disclosures live.

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AST-DA · Element 4 of 6 · Asset

DATA.

Information generated, processed, or consumed by the platform. Data is a first-class asset, not a second-class observable. Mission product, configuration, key material, and ephemeris all enumerate alongside hardware and software.

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AST-SI · Element 5 of 6 · Asset

SIGNAL.

Communication channels and transmission frequencies used by the platform. Signal is a first-class asset: detection engineering for jamming, spoofing, and signal-level intrusion lives inside the same enumeration as the hardware that emits it.

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AST-HY · Element 6 of 6 · Asset

HYBRID.

Composite elements combining multiple asset types, sealed appliances, vendor-delivered subsystems, integrated mission boxes. Reserved for cases where decomposing further would lose architectural meaning or exceed what the supplier exposes.

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The four structural layers form a strict hierarchy

PARENT, CHILD
REFERENCES.

Each entry elements its parent, the entry at the layer immediately above. A detection that fires on an asset is automatically traceable to the service it implements, the segment that hosts it, and the environment it sits in.

FUNCTION ONE · MOD 01
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The fifth layer · covered in Modules 2-5

THE FIFTH LAYER
OVERLAYS THE FOUR.

The Analytic Layer (AN) does not describe the platform. It describes what an analyst knows, or needs to know, about the platform’s security posture. Every analytic entry attaches via TARGET fields to one or more structural elements.

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FUNCTION 05 FUNCTION 04 FUNCTION 03 FUNCTION 02 CONTEXTUALIZED THREAT MODELING FUNCTION 02
Function 01 complete · Function 02 next

CONTEXTUALIZED
THREAT MODELING.

Decomposition done. Module 02 attaches threats to the structural element you just built.

▷ MODULE 01 ASSESSMENT

A 20-question multiple-choice exam, drawn at random from a 60-question bank. Aligned with Module 01 KSAT areas. Save your results as a PDF when you finish.

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