WGS AWARD: Boeing has been awarded a contract for the 10th Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft by the U.S. Air Force in the last award of the current series of high-bandwidth communications spacecraft. The contract is valued at $338.7 million and continues an X- and Ka-band communications constellation that began in 2000. There have been four WGS launches thus far. The latest to reach orbit, WGS-4, was orbited in January and is currently undergoing acceptance testing. Boeing is building WGS-5-9 in a pulsed-line production process at its El Segundo, Calif., factory.

Companies may not have to send employees a warning of potential layoffs because of possible across-the-board budget cuts next January

HOUSTON — After Russia’s Mission Control turned up the heat aboard the Progress 47 resupply craft, warming the erratic upgraded KURS-NA rendezvous system, the unpiloted freighter successfully re-docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on July 28. With a trouble free re-docking at 9:01 p.m. EDT, Russia’s federal space agency, Roscosmos, and contractor RSC Energia will aim for operational use of the KURS-NA on Soyuz crew transport as well as Progress cargo missions as soon as 2014.

Faces shrinking budgets and fewer new program opportunities

The U.S. House of Representatives has mostly protected the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) environmental satellite programs in its fiscal 2013 markup this year. The House spending bill for NOAA, passed in May, made significant cuts to three programs, including Jason-3, which will provide precise measurements of ocean surface heights. Jason-3 is one of four programs that Senate appropriators, impatient with delays and overruns, took away from NOAA and gave to NASA. (See chart below.)

Company reports advances in the performance of its 200-kw Vasimr plasma rocket engine prototype

BIG DEAL: The U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission gave final approvals to United Technologies Corp.’s (UTC) acquisition of Goodrich, clearing the way for UTC to close on its $18.4 billion mega-merger July 26. Hartford, Conn.-based UTC expects to see $8 billion in synergies from the deal this year, according to CEO Louis Chenevert.

Russia plans to follow the anticipated July 27 arrival of Japan’s unpiloted HTV-3 resupply craft with a second attempt to re-dock the Progress 47