WASHINGTON, 19 Jan. 2011. NASA officials are targeting 4:50 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 24, for the launch of space shuttle Discovery's STS-133 mission to the International Space Station. The liftoff of shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 flight is planned for 7:48 p.m. EDT on April 19, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

BOHEMIA, N.Y., 13 Jan. 2011. Data Device Corp. (DDC) in Bohemia, N.Y., is introducing the BU-65580MX PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) that combines enhanced-bit-rate MIL-STD-1553 and MIL-STD-1553 avionics databus interfaces for embedded and laboratory avionics databus applications.

ST. LOUIS, 11 Jan. 2011. Systems designers at the Raytheon Co. Missile Systems segment in Tucson, Ariz., needed an electronics contract manufacturer to expand the type of complex electronic assemblies available for the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) system. They found their solution from LaBarge Inc. in St. Louis.

WILSONVILLE, Ore., 10 Jan. 2011. Mentor Graphics Corp. developed its Precision Rad-Tolerant FPGA design software for aerospace and high-reliability applications with guidance from NASA officials. The company's synthesis-based radiation effects mitigation solution is designed to reduce the risk of functionality problems including soft errors caused by single event upset (SEU) and single event transient (SET) disruptions. Initial support is available for SRAM, anti-fuse, and flash-based devices from Actel and Xilinx.

NETANYA, Israel, 3 Jan. 2011. ORBIT Communication Systems, Ltd., won a contract to supply multiple ship borne unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking and communications systems to an undisclosed user.

FARNBOROUGH, England, 29 Dec. 2010. Zephyr, a hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Qinetiq, has officially won three world records -- including one for the longest flight ever by an airplane -- two weeks -- and one for altitude higher than any current surveillance airplane in its class. The UAV can be used to improve battlefield communications and surveillance in Afghanistan, track pirates in the Gulf of Aden, and detect bush fires in Australia. These records were achieved on the first flight of the all-new Zephyr aircraft.

WASHINGTON, 27 Dec. 2010. NASA is seeking proposals from researchers interested in testing new technologies during suborbital flights. The agency also is requesting information from commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicle providers and commercial payload integrators about carrying the technology payloads.

LITTLETON, Mass., 19 Dec. 2010. Curtiss-Wright Controls Electronic Systems in Littleton, Mass., is introducing CoolWall thermal management technology for rugged embedded computing enclosures, which is more lightweight and has a greater than 2x improvement in payload power cooling when compared to traditional aluminum construction. This technology is based on a proprietary mixture of metal composite materials, and provides the ability to thermally manage high-power payloads in multiprocessing and digital signal processing (DSP) applications where space, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints are key design hurdles.

WASHINGTON, 15 Dec. 2010. Officials at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) say that global aerospace sales improved over 2009, but have still not returned to the growth of 2007. Military aircraft sales showed an improvement of 8 percent over 2009 with sales of $64.5 billion in 2010, which made up for a decrease in civil aircraft sales of 6 percent to $48.2 billion, according to the AIA's "2010 Year-End Review and Forecast."

SAN JOSE, Calif., 14 Dec. 2010. Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in San Jose, Calif., is introducing radiation-hardened solid-state memory devices for military, satellite, avionics, and other applications that are exposed to radiation. The rad-hard 72-MBit QDR II+ static random access memories (SRAMs) resist total-dose radiation of as much as 300 kilorads.

ST. LOUIS, 14 Dec. 2010. The Boeing [NYSE: BA] Phantom Ray unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew atop a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747, as it took off a test flight at Lambert International Airport. The 50-minute flight was conducted in preparation for Phantom Ray's upcoming transport on the SCA to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y., 14 Dec. 2010. Sensis Corp.'s Wide Area Multilateration (WAM) deployment in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland is now certified for air traffic control (ATC) by the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority.

PHOENIX, 10 Dec. 2010. Honeywell Inc. in Phoenix is introducing a 64-megabit solid-state memory component that withstands one megarad of total-dose radiation for military satellite applications during extreme radiation environments or extended space flight. Honeywell’s 64-megabit static random access memory (SRAM) multi-chip module (MCM) uses proprietary technology to bond four 16-megabit chips into one 86-pin module.

CHATSWORTH, Calif., 8 Dec. 2010. Aitech Defense Systems Inc. in chatsworth, Calif., is introducing the rugged S750 radiation-tolerant Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet switch PCI mezzanine card (PMC) for harsh-environment space applications, including low earth orbit (LEO), Mars terrestrial, and geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). The switch fabric interface card transfers Ethernet data between Gigabit Ethernet NIC end-points and the host central processor. On-board memory and function redundancy on the S750 is implemented in a radiation-hardened field-programmabe gate array (FPGA) to operate in harsh space environments.

EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y., 6 Dec. 2010. NASA selected Sensis Corp. for the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) NextGen Airportal Project Technologies: System Analysis, Integration and Evaluation (SAIE). Sensis will perform a cost-benefit analysis of select NASA concepts and technologies (C&Ts) for the airportal environment (defined as terminal airspace down to the airport gate) and investigate the integration of the concepts into the National Airspace System (NAS). The program will provide NASA with a roadmap for the integration and simulation of C&Ts that will affect the safety, efficiency and capacity of airportal operations.

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., 3 Dec. 2010. Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced the de-orbit and landing of their unmanned spacecraft -- the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), also known as the X-37B -- for the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). The X-37B was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on April 22. The X-37B is the first U.S. unmanned vehicle to return from space and land on its own. Previously, the space shuttle was the only space vehicle capable of returning to Earth. The success of this inaugural mission demonstrates that unmanned space vehicles can be sent into orbit and safely recovered, Boeing officials say.

WASHINGTON, 27 Nov. 2010. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued its first license permitting the reentry to earth of a privately developed spacecraft to the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX). The Space X Dragon space capsule will launch atop their Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 7 and return to earth. While initially unmanned, the mission is a precursor to NASA and SpaceX efforts to eventually provide commercial trips to the International Space Station with cargo and crew.

CRAWLEY, England, 24 Nov. 2010. Thales UK announced the certification of its multi-service TopFlight satellite communication (SATCOM) system on the Boeing Next-Generation 737 and 777 passenger aircraft, after completing flight tests with Boeing. The Thales TopFlight SATCOM is the first ARINC 781 SwiftBroadband-enabled SATCOM capable of simultaneous flight deck and cabin communications certified for production installation on the Next-Generation 737 and 777.

SHIRLEY, N.Y., 24 Nov. 2010. Modular Devices Inc. in Shirley, N.Y., is introducing the compact 5080 Proton rad-hard 100K+ high-efficiency synchronous buck regulator that delivers on-board, low-voltage DC power to critical loads precisely where needed. The device develops as much as 10 Watts in a range of low-voltage outputs from an intermediate 12-volt DC input, and achieves operating efficiencies more than 90 percent.