Boeing CEO McNerney to suppliers: Share the pain

In Europe and the U.S., new leaders face old challenges

With a clear path to certification, SpaceX eyes duel with ULA in 2015

The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $343.3 million direct loan to Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat) to finance the purchase of two Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) communications satellites, plus launch services. SS/L is building AsiaSat 6, a C-band satellite, and AsiaSat 8, a mixed Ku/Ka-band satellite, under a contract announced in November 2011. The launches, to be carried out by SpaceX, are planned for the first half of 2014. To date in fiscal 2013, the Ex-Im Bank has authorized $891 million in support of U.S.

An Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL air-launched rocket is in final preparation to send a NASA scientific satellite into polar orbit to study a poorly understood region of the Sun's atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) (see image) will combine an ultraviolet telescope and a multi-channel imaging spectrograph to study the interface region between the visible surface of the Sun and its upper atmosphere, which is the source of most of the Sun's UV radiation.

NASA's long-lived Opportunity rover is rolling toward a new destination at Endeavour Crater on Mars, following one of the nine-year mission's most striking discoveries, a rock rich in clay minerals that points to an early, biologically friendly era dominated by water with a neutral chemistry. Opportunity's internal examination of the rock Esperance in a region known as Cape York on the crater's rim has produced findings strikingly similar to those from rock analysis by NASA's Curiosity rover at the Yellowknife Bay region of distant Gale Crater.

With 5th flight underway, plans for a space station in 2 years.

Test pilots working for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic expect to expand the SpaceShipTwo flight envelope rapidly this year, and to reach the edge of space before the end of December.