ANOTHER TRY: Cobham has launched a hostile takeover bid for satellite communications equipment maker Thrane & Thrane after an initial offer was rebuffed by the Danish company. Cobham bid £270 million ($428 million) for outstanding shares in Thrane & Thrane after bringing its own holdings to 25.6%. The move comes after Cobham withdrew an earlier bid last month, after Thrane & Thrane rejected it. Since then, Cobham has acquired shares from Jupiter Asset Management and other entities that represent 22.7% of the Danish company’s shares.

NEW DELHI — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has signed a contract to launch the Spot-6 satellite for France-based EADS Astrium. The agency says Spot-6 will be launched onboard ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) during the second half of 2012. The PSLV, in its “core alone” configuration, will carry other payloads as well.

NASA’s scientifically productive and publicly popular Kepler mission, launched three years ago to seek evidence for Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, was one of nine maturing astrophysics programs that won endorsement for an extension this week, following an agency sponsored Senior Review Committee evaluation.

KEPLER EXTENDED: NASA has approved the Kepler planet-finding mission for an extension through fiscal 2016, following a senior-level agency review of operational astrophysics missions. The extension provides four additional years for the probe to look for Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone­ around their parent stars. “Kepler has revolutionized our understanding of exoplanets and the study of stellar seismology and variability,” says Roger Hunter, Kepler project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

HOUSTON — U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station have begun an upgrade of the air-to-ground communications system to support a substantial increase in simultaneous science research, including a doubling of the downlink data rate, solid-state recording and additional voice loops.

The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office has three more intelligence spacecraft to orbit in the next four months, following Tuesday’s launch of its classified NROL-25 payload — probably an imaging reconnaissance satellite — from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Liftoff of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Medium-plus 5.2 rocket from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-6 came at 7:12 EDT, and the NRO termed the launch “successful.” Launches from the California military site go into polar orbit for global overhead coverage.

HOUSTON — Boeing’s candidate in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative, the CST-100 capsule, completed the first in a series of parachute drop tests this week at the Delmar Dry Lake Bed near Alamo, Nev. A second test is planned for later this month, and will incorporate the landing system drogue chute for the first time, demonstrating the full anticipated parachute system sequence.

COST GROWTH: Procurement cost growth in the portfolio of nearly 100 weapons programs analyzed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in its recently released assessment amounts to nearly $61 billion; half of that is from quantity changes. There were 59 programs with no quantity change; 22 increased and 14 decreased. Four programs are new to the 2011 portfolio: Apache Block IIIB New Build; HC/MC-130 Recap; KC-130J and Small Diameter Bomb II (Aerospace DAILY, March 30, April 3).