JPL engineers, scientists learn how to operate Curiosity rover

Two demonstration Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellites, built by Northrop Grumman, captured these infrared images of a ballistic missile intercept from their low Earth orbit. In 2009, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) lofted the two STSS satellites, developed under the then-Space-Based Infrared System-low program, to explore whether orbiting spacecraft could be used to track warheads in mid-flight.

Jerry Grey has taught engineering at Princeton University and been science and policy director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

More than half of A&D professionals under 30 mention student loans as a key factor in career planning.

Aviation Week's 2012 Workforce Study data come from respondents that collectively employ 80% of the A&D industry's workforce of 624,000. Newcomers to this year's study include Alenia Aermacchi North America and Acutec Precision Machining.

Earthlings have tried 40 times to fly by, land on or orbit the red planet. Have only gathered any data 16 times.

U.S. engineers have been figuring out what it will take to get out of Earth orbit to Mars

The hair-raising 7-min. descent and high-precision landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars last week (p. 24) provided a much-needed reinvigoration to a space agency that is struggling to stay relevant after last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet.