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.

WASHINGTON, 8 May 2012. The Boeing Company has completed the second parachute drop test for its Crew Space Transportation (CST) spacecraft. This latest parachute test comes as part of the company’s effort to develop commercial crew transportation capabilities to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS).

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.

Aerospace and defense firms advance the state of the art in acquiring, processing, and exploiting crucial still imagery and full-motion video.

Radio communications experts and antenna manufacturers wrestle with the sometimes-conflicting requirements of size, efficiency, bandwidth, and cost as they design the voice and data battlefield communications systems of the future.

Navigation and guidance experts at the DARPA are trying to reduce the military's reliance on GPS satellite guidance for advanced munitions, mid- and long-range missiles, and other weapons by creating a navigation-system-on-a-chip that combines traditional and atomic inertial guidance technology.

U.S. Air Force researchers are asking industry to develop and demonstrate large, low-noise, high-uniformity, medium-wave infrared (MWIR) detector arrays for the next generation of space-based launch detection aboard satellites similar to those that are part of the Defense Support Program (DSP) and Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) constellations of reconnaissance satellites.

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.

ST. LOUIS, Mo., 26 April 2012. The Boeing Co.[NYSE: BA] delivered a second set of P-8A Poseidon training devices to the U.S. Navy on March 29 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla. The delivery consisted of an Operational Flight Trainer (OFT), a Weapons Tactics Trainer (WTT) and four Electronic Classrooms.

WASHINGTON, 25 April 2012. Engineers at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Redondo Beach, Calif., and ATK in Magna, Utah, have completed the center section of the backplane structure that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

BLACKSBURG, Va., 23 April 2012. VPT Inc., a HEICO company (NYSE:HEI.A) (NYSE:HEI), broke ground on its new headquarters facility in Blacksburg, Va. The new facility, which will also serve as VPT’s research and development center, will be located in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.

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.

DULLES, Va., 19 April 2012. The U.S. Air Force has exercised an option order for a Minotaur I space launch vehicle from Orbital Sciences Corp. (NYSE:ORB) to support the ORS-3 “Enabler” mission for the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office of the Department of Defense.

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.