RUAG Space is a large provider of space technology in Europe. It develops, manufactures and tests subsystems and equipment for satellites and launch vehicles. With divisions located in Switzerland, Sweden and Austria, RUAG Space offers a comprehensive portfolio of products and services for institutional and commercial space missions. RUAG Space is a long lasting partner for satellite and launcher primes worldwide.

RUAG Space is the Space Division of the Swiss technology group RUAG. With seven sites, located in Switzerland (Zurich, Emmen and Nyon), Sweden (Gothenburg, Linköping) and Austria (Vienna, Berndorf), RUAG Space employs around 1,100 people and posted sales of 283 million Swiss Francs in 2010.

RUAG Space is developing and producing a wide range of products for the space industry. See:

• RUAG Space Switzerland
• RUAG Space Sweden
• RUAG Space Austria

Marotta Controls Inc. designs and manufactures fluid control systems, components and actuators designed specifically for the Aerospace, Military, Space and Industrial markets. Applications include aircraft hydraulic systems, high-pressure pneumatics and smart fluid systems on Navy ships, and reaction control systems on launch vehicles and small satellites.

Marotta produce thrusters and isolation valves; cold gas thrusters; regulators; relief valves; check valves.

Alaska Aerospace Corporation (AAC)'s core business is space launch. It developed, owns, and operates the Kodiak Launch Complex, a spaceport on Kodiak Island, Alaska, that provides access to space for commercial and government interests. 

ARCA Space is a non profit organization with main objective being the exploration and colonization of space.

In order to reach these objectives, ARCA builds and launches cost effective space vehicles. ARCA Space is using technologies already existing, in an innovative ways.

The Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC) is a commercial rocket launch facility for sub-orbital and orbital space launch vehicles.

It is owned and operated by the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, a public corporation of the State of Alaska. The facility is located on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

The Kodiak spaceport has two launch pads with a mission control center with high-speed communications and data links. There is a clean room for preparing satellites for launch, a fully enclosed 17-story-tall rocket assembly building and two independent range and telemetry systems. 

Air Liquide S.A. is a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries ; this includes cryogenic propellants and cryogenic stages for launch vehicles.

Founded in 1902, it is currently (Nov. 2012) one of the world's largest suppliers of industrial gases by revenues, and has operations in over 80 countries. It is headquartered in Paris, France. It also has a major site in Japan, as well as in Houston, TX, and Newark, DE, USA.

references: 

• Space & Aeronautics (embarked systems)
• Cryogenics: cold for space

Operator of the Apstar series of communications satellites in the Asia Pacific region, providing satellite services, including broadband media and television services.

APT launched its first satellite, APSTAR-1, in 1994.

APSTAR-V and APSTAR-VI is the new generation (as of Nov. 2012) of high-power and high-reliability communication satellites.

A Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) is a type of communications satellite.

Such a satellite forms part of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) used by NASA and other United States government agencies for communications to and from independent "User Platforms" such as satellites, balloons, aircraft, and the International Space Station. This system was designed to replace a pre-existing worldwide network of ground stations that had supported all of NASA's manned flight missions and unmanned satellites in low-Earth orbits. The primary system design goal was to increase the amount of time that these spacecraft were in communication with the ground and improve the amount of data that could be transferred. These TDRSS satellites are all designed and built to be launched to and function in geosynchronous orbit.

The NASA Visualization Explorer — a nice way to get stories about NASA's exploration of the Earth, sun, moon, planets and universe. Each story will take you on a remarkable journey into the science of NASA, brought to life.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate is organized into four disciplines: Heliophysics, Planetary, Astrophysics and Earth science. This project is putting imagery and data from this exploration at your fingertips. 

The Focusing Optics x-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a sounding rocket payload to test hard x-ray (HXR) focusing optics and position-sensitive solid state detectors for solar observations.

The mission is funded under the NASA Low Cost Access to Space program. The FOXSI project is led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for the grazing incidence optics, while the Astro-H team at JAXA/ISAS has provided double-sided silicon strip detectors.

FOXSI is a pathfinder for the next generation of solar hard x-ray spectroscopic imagers. Such observatories will be able to image the non-thermal electrons within the solar flare acceleration region, trace their paths through the corona, and provide essential quantitative measurements such as energy spectra, density, and energy content in accelerated electrons.

The FOXSI team sits in front of the integrated payload before it gets ready for launch (from left to right: Paul Turin, Shinya Saito, Stephen McBride, Steven Christe, Säm Krucker, Lindsay Glesener). Credit: NASA/S. Fitzpatrick 

 Previously, techniques to collect and observe the high energy x-rays streaming from the sun were hampered by the fact that x-rays at high energies cannot be focused with conventional lenses the way visible light can be. When an x-ray encounters a standard glass lens it passes through the lens completely. X-ray telescopes have therefore relied on imaging that doesn't rely on focusing. This is a very effective technique when looking at a single bright event on the sun, such as the large burst of radiation and x-rays from a solar flare, but doesn't work as well when searching for many faint events occurring simultaneously. 

The FOXSI instrument, however, makes use of new iridium-coated nickel/cobalt mirrors that do successfully cause x-rays to reflect, as long as the x-rays come in from a nearly horizontal direction. Several of these mirrors in combination help collate the x-ray light before funneling it to the detector. These focusing optics make faint events appear brighter and crisper.