ARLINGTON, Va. 20 May 2012. Satellite designers at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are pushing forward with a project to develop small, networked clusters or orbiting satellite modules that are maintainable and upgradeable to replace traditional monolithic military satellites that can be risky and difficult to fix or upgrade when onboard malfunctions occur.

THE MIL & AERO VIDEO BLOG, 15 May 2012. Scientists at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are prodding industry to find ways of providing on-demand satellite photos of the forward edge of battlefields quickly and at a price competitive with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as John Keller reports this week in the Mil & Aero video blog.

CHELMSFORD, Mass., 14 May 2012. Hittite Microwave Corp. in Chelmsford, Mass., is introducing two RF and microwave amplifiers and three mixers for microwave & millimeter wave radios, military sensors, test & measurement equipment, and satellite communications (SATCOM) applications operating at frequencies from 24 to 46.5 GHz.

ARLINGTON, Va., 11 May 2012. Scientists at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., want to make relevant battlefield imagery available to front-line warfighters in real time using constellations of temporary and inexpensive orbiting satellites that are launched quickly enough to support fast-moving military operations.

BLACKSBURG, Va., 10 May 2012. VPT Inc. in Blacksburg, Va., is introducing the SVGA0515 series point of load DC-DC converter for use in the extreme environment of space. VPT experts have qualified the SVGA0515 to MIL-PRF-38534 Class H and Class K.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., 5 May 2012. The U.S. Air Force launched the second Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-2) military communication satellite, built by a Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] team, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

NEWTOWN, Pa., 3 May 2012. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) has been awarded an $8.4 million contract to provide orbital operations support of the GPS IIR/IIR-M satellite constellation.

PARIS, France, 27 April 2012. The first two Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) satellites built by Astrium have begun full in-orbit operations. The satellites passed a series of in-orbit tests following their launch on the first Soyuz flight from the Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana on 21 October 2011.

HOUSTON, Texas, 21 April 2012. Boeing [NYSE: BA] has signed an agreement with NASA's Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) at Johnson Space Center to collaborate on mission planning, training and flight operations for the company’s Commercial Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft.

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., 19 April 2012. Microsemi Corp. in Aliso Viejo, Calif., is introducing the SA50-28 family of radiation-hardened single-, dual-, and triple-output DC-DC converters for military and commercial satellites that require protection against naturally occurring total-dose ionized radiation, which can hurt system performance.

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, 19 April 2012. Y1B, the second satellite of the United Arab Emirates’ space communications program prepared for launch on a Proton launcher from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

WASHINGTON, 18 April 2012. NASA has released version 2.0 of its Open Government Plan, upgraded with open data sharing, open source development, and a variety of technology acceleration efforts.

Newtown, Pa., 17 April 2012. Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) and Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] have successfully completed an integration milestone between Raytheon’s Global Positioning System (GPS) Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) and Lockheed Martin’s GPS III satellite system.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., 14 April 2012. Boeing [NYSE: BA] announced today that the U.S. Air Force accepted control of the fourth Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) military communications satellite on April 11, after the spacecraft passed several weeks of on-orbit tests.

BOULDER, Colo., 11 April 2012. NASA officials have extended the Kepler Mission through 2016—four years past the original end date of Nov. 2012. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., will continue its role as mission prime contractor for Kepler, through which engineers are searching for Earth-size planets around other stars using a Ball Aerospace-built photometer and spacecraft.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., 10 April 2012. NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Englewood, Colo., to launch the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R and –S (GOES-R and GOES-S). The GOES-R and GOES-S spacecraft are scheduled to launch in Oct. 2015 and Feb. 2017, respectively, aboard Atlas V 541 rockets from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

WASHINGTON, 27 March 2012. The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has finalized a firm-fixed-price contract with Al Yah Satellite Company (Yahsat), a United Arab Emirates-based multipurpose satellite operator, to design and build active electronically steered phased array antenna systems for aircraft.

ROCHESTER, N.Y., 21 March 2012. ITT Exelis (NYSE: XLS) has been awarded a $32 million contract by Lockheed Martin to build the navigation payloads for the Global Positioning System III (GPS III) space vehicles three and four.

WASHINGTON, 15 March 2012. NASA officials are seeking proposals from accredited U.S. universities for the inaugural Space Technology Research Opportunities for Early Career Faculty. This solicitation seeks to sponsor research in specific, high-priority technology areas of interest to NASA. NASA will award approximately 10 grants this fall, funded up to $200,000 each per year, based on the merit of proposals received. Notices of intent to submit proposals are due March 30.