SATCOM MARKET: The worldwide commercial communications satellite market will be worth $52.7 billion from 2012-2021, according to a new study from consultancy Forecast International. Demand will be especially strong in developing markets such as Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, the study says, driven by a lack of terrestrial networks and rapid growth in demand for communications in these areas. The top manufacturers over the next decade will be Space Systems/Loral, Thales Alenia Space, EADS Astrium, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The most powerful version of Space Exploration Technologies' Merlin rocket engine yet developed has completed its first full-duration mission firing test

LOS ANGELES — NASA is completing fabrication of the first Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration capsule due to be tested in space, while at the same time starting key vacuum tests on the Alliant Techsystems (ATK)-built composite module that could form the basis for future crew transport to Earth orbit. Following final structural work, the Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) Orion will be shipped from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center, Fla., where it will undergo final assembly and checkout.

DARK MATTERS: European scientists finally have agreed to start the $1 billion Euclid project, devoted to the study of dark energy. After months of delay in securing approval, Euclid still proved too compelling to set aside, despite far exceeding the funding allocated for what the European Space Agency calls its medium-class missions. The 2,160-kg (4,750-lb.) satellite is scheduled to launch to the L2 Lagrangian point in the second quarter of 2020 aboard a European variant of the Soyuz rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ICY MOON: Mapping the floor of the Moon’s Shackleton Crater in what NASA describes as unprecedented detail, agency scientists and university researchers have calculated that unusually bright laser returns from the crater floor may be caused by ice mixed in with other material there. As much as 22% of the surface material in Shackleton could be ice, according to a paper published in the journal Nature, based on laser-mapping data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnnaisance Orbiter.

Astrium will study ways to use the technology it helped develop for Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle Columbus laboratory module.

HOUSTON — U.S. and Canadian Space Agency ground-control teams successfully advanced techniques outside the International Space Station (ISS) this week for extending the lives of aging satellites by refueling them, repairing damage or moving inactive spacecraft to prevent them from becoming collision hazards.

TECH TRANSFER: NASA has launched a new “technology transfer portal” where entrepreneurs, managers and others can look for new, publicly funded technology to commercialize. The site, at http://technology.nasa.gov, includes a searchable database of NASA patents available for transfer to the private domain, and links to agency specialists trained to help make the shift. “A priority of NASA is to get federally funded new technologies into the commercial marketplace,” said Mason Peck, the agency’s chief technologist.