BEIJING — China plans to add three more satellites to its Compass positioning system this year, following the successful launch of two sats by a single Long March 3B rocket on April 30.

LOS ANGELES — The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office is pushing ahead with preparations for three more missions and continuing a key military utility assessment of the ongoing TacSat-4 tactical test spacecraft, despite uncertainty over its future after being zero-funded in the White House’s fiscal 2013 budget.

GOES-R: Lockheed Martin has completed the spacecraft critical design review for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series (GOES-R) satellite system that the company is building for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. “The team demonstrated that the design and operations are understood and sufficiently mature to begin the build and integration phase,” Lockheed said in a May 1 announcement. The first spacecraft in the next-generation weather satellite series is due for launch in 2015.

It took two attempts, but SpaceX carried out a successful hot-fire test of the Falcon 9 first stage on April 30.

LOS ANGELES — Lockheed Martin is ramping up final assembly work on the flight test version of the Orion crew module as workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) begin verification checks on the Orion ground test vehicle.

NEW DELHI — India plans to launch dedicated communication satellites for the Navy and Air Force between 2012 and 2014, Defense Minister A.K. Antony says. The naval satellite is planned to be launched in 2012-13, while the air force communication satellite is planned to be launched in 2013-14, Antony said in a written reply to a question in parliament on April 30.He also says that the tri-services defense communication network (DCN) is progressing as per India’s defense procurement procedures.

PARIS — French aerospace engine supplier Safran has finalized the merger of two subsidiaries, energy materials specialist SME and solid-propulsion-motor manufacturer Snecma Propulsion Solid (SPS), Paris-based Safran announced April 30.

SAN FRANCISCO — Far-infrared astronomy is not done from ground observatories and has only been possible from a few orbiting telescopes, so the addition of the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera (HAWC) to NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia) will allow astronomers to fill a void. On April 19, NASA said it had selected two additional instruments to expand HAWC’s research range.