Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies.

The program was announced on January 18, 2006. NASA has suggested that "Commercial services to ISS will be necessary through at least 2015."
COTS must be distinguished from the related Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. COTS relates to the development of the vehicles, CRS to the actual deliveries. COTS involves a number of Space Act Agreements, with NASA providing milestone-based payments. COTS does not involve binding contracts.

The Cygnus spacecraft is an unmanned resupply spacecraft being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation as part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) developmental program.

It is designed to transport supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) following the retirement of the American Space Shuttle in 2011. Since August 2000 unmanned ISS resupply missions have been regularly flown by Russian Progress spacecraft, as well as by the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the SpaceX Dragon. With the Cygnus spacecraft, NASA seeks to increase its partnerships with domestic commercial aviation and aeronautics industry.

The Antares rocket, known in early development as Taurus II, is an expendable launch system being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation.

It is designed to launch payloads weighing up to 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) into low-Earth orbit. It is scheduled to make its first flight on 20 April 2013.
NASA awarded to Orbital a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract in 2008 to demonstrate delivery of cargo to the International Space Station. For these COTS missions Orbital intends to use Antares to launch its Cygnus spacecraft. In addition, Antares will compete for small-to-medium missions.

On Dec. 12, 2011 Orbital Sciences renamed the launch vehicle "Antares" from the previous designation of Taurus II, after the star of the same name name.

The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is a charter which provides for the charitable retasked acquisition of and transmission of space satellite data to relief organizations in the event of major disasters.

Initiated by the European Space Agency and the French space agency CNES after the UNISPACE III conference held in Vienna, Austria in July 1999, it officially came into operation on November 1, 2000 after the Canadian Space Agency signed onto the charter on October 20, 2000. Their troika of space assets was, respectively, ERS and ENVISAT, SPOT and Fomosat, and RADARSAT. 

The assorted satellite assets of various private, national, and international space agencies provide for humanitarian coverage which is wide albeit contingent. First activated for floods in northeast France in December 2001,[1] the Charter has since brought space assets into play for numerous earthquakes, oil spills, forest fires, tsunamis, major snowfalls, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and landslides.

The International Charter aims at providing a unified system of space data acquisition and delivery to those affected by natural or man-made disasters through Authorized Users. Each member agency has committed resources to support the provisions of the Charter and thus is helping to mitigate the effects of disasters on human life and property.

DMC International Imaging (DMCii) is a company specialised in Earth imaging services. It provides: satellite imagery, archived data, related project services, and manages the DMC satellite constellation.

The company manages the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), a constellation of Earth observation satellites. It is a satellite constellation that delivers high frequency imaging anywhere on the globe from an established and growing collection of satellites. The constellation is coordinated by DMCii to deliver high quality commercial earth imaging services.

DMCii manages the DMC constellation for the 'International Charter for Space and Major Disasters'. 

DMCII is a wholly owned subsidiary of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). 

Kongsberg Satellite Services AS or KSAT is an operator of satellite ground stations based in Tromsø, Norway. KSAT has three main ground stations: Tromsø Satellite Station, Svalbard Satellite Station and Troll Satellite Station.

KSAT is a commercial Norwegian enterprise, uniquely positioned to provide ground station and earth observation services for polar orbiting satellites. With three interconnected polar ground stations; Tromsø at 69°N, Svalbard (SvalSat) at 78°N and Antarctic TrollSat Station at 72°S, and a growing mid-latitude network, KSAT operates over 60 antennas optimally positioned for access to polar orbits.

KSAT is a joint venture equally owned by the Kongsberg Group and the Norwegian Space Centre, the latter owned by the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Dutch Space is a supplier of subsystems for the European space industry. The company, originally a member of the Fokker group, was established as an independent company in 1995, and has about 300 employees (in 2013).

Dutch Space is a European independent solar array manufacturer for spacecraft. The solar array program ranges from telecommunication and science to earth observation applications. The Dutch Space solar arrays combine heritage (based on the Advanced Rigid Array - ara- concept) and flexibility.

CRISA (Computadoras, Redes e Ingeniería, S.A.) is a Spanish company founded in 1985 to design and manufacture electronic equipment and software for space applications: satellites, launchers, orbital infrastructure and space transportation vehicles. In 2000, CRISA became part of the EADS Astrium group.

CRISA, employs (in 2013) more than 390 people. The company has played a relevant role in several ESA's scientific and Earth observation missions, developing payload processors and hardware and software controllers: data processing units, control units, power conditioning and distribution units, ground segment and test bench equipment.

All of these developments play a vital role in monitoring the Earth's environmental conditions, the observation of natural events, as well as the scientific research of the Universe, the Moon, comets and planets. Some of the main programs that carry this equipment onboard include the Meteosat Second Generation, MetOp, Rosetta, Mars and Venus Express, Herschel, Planck, GOCE, ATV vehicles, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity or Ariane 5 and Vega launchers. Presently, more than 25 projects are being undertaken for future upcoming missions like Ingenio, Paz, LISA Pathfinder, Gaia, Sentinel-2&3, BepiColombo, EathCARE, Solar Orbiter or Metosat Third Generation among others.

CRISA is also very active in telecommunication satellites developing various electronic units for communications satellite platform like Eurostar E3000, AlphaBus and SmallGEO.

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) is a series of experiments designed directly to detect particle dark matter in the form of WIMPs.

Using an array of semiconductor detectors at millikelvin temperatures, CDMS has set the most sensitive limits to date on the interactions of WIMP dark matter with terrestrial materials. The first experiment, CDMSI, was run in a tunnel under the Stanford University campus. The current experiment, CDMSII, is located deep underground in the Soudan Mine in northern Minnesota.

SuperCDMS is the successor to CDMS II. The "super" refers to the larger, improved detectors. There are actually three generations of Super CDMS planned:

• SuperCDMS Soudan, with 9.3 kg of active detector mass made of 15×620 g germanium discs (76.2 mm/3″ diameter × 25.4 mm/1″ thick). This has been operating since March 2012.
• SuperCDMS SNOLAB, with 100–200 kg of active detector mass, made of 1380 g germanium discs (100 mm/3.9″ diameter × 33.3 mm/1.3″ thick). Development is underway, and it is hoped construction will begin in 2014. The deeper SNOLAB site will reduce cosmic ray backgrounds compared to Soudan.
• GEODM (Germanium Observatory for Dark Matter), with more than 1000 kg of detector mass. Preliminary planning hopes to install this in the DUSEL laboratory.

The Global Geospace Science (GGS) WIND satellite is a NASA science spacecraft.

It was launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Merritt Island, Florida aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket.

It was deployed to study radio and plasma that occur in the solar wind and in the Earth's magnetosphere before the solar wind reaches the Earth. The spacecraft's original mission was to orbit the Sun at the L1 Lagrangian point, but this was delayed when the SOHO and ACE spacecraft were sent to the same location. WIND has been at L1 continuously since 2004, and is still operating as of December 2012. WIND currently has enough fuel to last roughly 60 years at L1. WIND continues to produce relevant research.

WIND was designed and manufactured by Martin Marietta Astro Space Division in East Windsor, New Jersey. The satellite is a spin stabilized cylindrical satellite with a diameter of 2.4 m and a height of 1.8 m.

The primary science objectives of the Wind mission are:

• Provide complete plasma, energetic particle and magnetic field for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies.
• Investigate basic plasma processes occurring in the near-Earth solar wind.
• Provide baseline, 1 AU, ecliptic plane observations for inner and outer heliospheric missions.