The third Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment flight test took place from Wallops Island, Va., in the early morning of July 23

Full-scale test article has concluded second drop test at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona

EADS space subsidiary Astrium has made another foray into the U.S. satellite equipment market with a contract from Lockheed Martin to provide Ku-band receivers and Ka-band beacons for the Jabiru-1 satellite, which Lockheed is producing for Australia’s NewSat. Designed to last 15 years, Jabiru-1 will be positioned over the Indian Ocean covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Launch is slated for late 2014 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

In June, Raytheon submitted proposals to the Air Force under the service’s FAB-T alternate program.

HOUSTON — NanoRacks, LLC, plans to improve astronaut training for its MixStix science canisters, to avoid a repeat of an activation failure involving 15 student experiments launched to the International Space Station in May.

If the Progress test is successful, a Soyuz crew may attempt the accelerated trajectory next year.

PARIS — British military demand for Skynet satellite bandwidth is expected to decline with troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting Paradigm Services, a division of EADS-Astrium, to expand its commercial offering to include civil service monitoring and data collection for government and private sector customers.

The contracts provide $412 million to ULA for three Delta II launches and $82 million to SpaceX for a Falcon 9 mission, all from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., in 2014-16.