After two decades rising through the executive ranks at communications services provider Amdocs Management, Dov Baharav had no defense experience when he was tapped in 2011 to serve as chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). During his tenure at Amdocs, Baharav oversaw complex financial systems and high-tech development projects in the lead-up to the dot-com bust, when he was appointed CEO.

Spaceborne study of the Sun has produced spectacular images like these over the years, but still leaves much about our nearest star cloaked in mystery. Now an ultraviolet (UV) telescope with unusually high spectral bandwidth will try to solve one of the most puzzling—why temperatures vary so dramatically between the Sun's surface and the upper limits of its turbulent atmosphere.

Budget squeeze adds to mounting pressure on commercial crew tests

It is a golden instrument, in more ways than one. NIRcam, the Near-Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is wrapped in a gold insulating foil, the better to maintain its operating temperature of 35K (-397F). But it also will play a golden role for the three other instruments on the $8 billion mission, which is to put astronomy's largest orbiting observatory into service in 2018.

Reauthorization offers chance to set space goals

President Barack Obama's Brandenburg Gate call to eliminate up to a third of the U.S. nuclear arsenal has few ardent champions. And the remaining discontent may matter, since the cuts aren't likely to materialize while Obama is still in office. Republicans denounce the plan to reduce beyond the New Start treaty's limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, and promise to set up procedural roadblocks in the Senate.