The FAA's NextGen air traffic control modernization effort is a top priority, and 2013 will be a crucial year for its en-route automation modernization and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast programs. Deployment of both is to be largely completed by the end of the year. If that does not occur, there could be serious headaches for other NextGen initiatives.

Primes find they must share intellectual property with suppliers.

It's a classic chicken or egg dilemma. Small satellites are not being built because there is no cheap way to launch them, and small launchers are not being built because there are no satellites to launch on them. So the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is attacking the problem from both directions simultaneously, with dual programs to develop $500,000 imaging satellites of less than 100 lb. and air-launched boosters to place them in low Earth orbit for $1 million a flight.

Lawmakers are constantly caught between balancing the needs of the federal government while staying true to the voters at home. Such is the case in this year's fight to maintain the Air National Guard (ANG) and Reserve, which lends a hand to the active duty military while also standing ready to serve all 50 states. Congress balked at the Air Force's initial proposal to cut 287 aircraft and 11,600 personnel, ordering a freeze on retiring or transferring aircraft.

A year-end deadline for the Air Force and Navy to disclose the target initial operational capability (IOC) dates for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was extended until June 1, 2013, in the last days of congressional conference negotiations over the 2013 defense budget. Programs are considered to have reached the benchmark once they complete initial operational test and evaluation.

President can remove satellites and components from munitions list.

After a year of bureaucratic dithering by others, a core group of scientists and engineers has agreed to spearhead utilization of the U.S. National Laboratory on the International Space Station. The permanent board of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) has a steep learning curve, but its members appear willing to spend some serious time putting out the word that there's a unique microgravity research facility available in orbit to anyone with a good idea for using it, free of charge.

In November 2008, the year Wanda Austin became CEO of The Aerospace Corp., Aviation Week & Space Technology featured her on the cover with a three-page profile inside. “The fact that Austin is a woman and an African-American is impossible to miss,” the magazine wrote.