The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center ( DLR) to construct and maintain an airborne observatory. NASA awarded the contract for the development of the aircraft, operation of the observatory and management of the American part of the project to the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in 1996.

The DSI (Deutsches SOFIA Institut) manages the German parts of the project which are primarily science and telescope related. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010. SOFIA is the successor to the Kuiper Airborne Observatory.

SpaceShipOne is a suborbital air-launched spaceplane that completed the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. Its mothership was named "White Knight". Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company.

The SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is a suborbital, air-launched space plane, designed for space tourism. It is under development by The Spaceship Company.

SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a mothership, the Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being launched to fly on into the upper atmosphere, powered by a rocket motor. It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing. The spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on Monday, 7 December 2009, at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The aircraft is currently (2012) undergoing flight-testing, having conducted 22 successful gliding flight tests as of August 2012.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is an electronic systems provider and systems integrator specializing in microsatellites, energy,telemedicine, nanotechnology, and commercial orbital transportation services. The company contracts with the US military, NASA and private spaceflight companies. The company is headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, USA.

On December 2008 SNC acquired the company SpaceDev. SNC is now developing an orbital spacecraft called the Dream Chaser. On February 2010, Sierra Nevada Corporation was awarded a contract in phase 1 of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program for the development of the Dream Chaser.

The Dream Chaser is a space plane concept studied and developed by the North-American company Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC).

It is designed to be a crewed suborbital and orbital vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing (VTHL) lifting-body space plane. The Dream Chaser design is planned to carry up to seven people to and from low earth orbit. The vehicle would launch vertically on an Atlas V and land horizontally on conventional runways.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) was founded in 1919. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation.

Its individual members - structured in Divisions, Commissions, Working groups and Program Groups - are professional astronomers from all over the world, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, and active in professional research and education in astronomy. In addition, the IAU collaborates with various organizations all over the world.

The key activity of the IAU is the organization of scientific meetings. Every year the IAU sponsors nine international IAU Symposia. The IAU Symposium Proceedings series is the flagship of the IAU publications. Every three years the IAU holds a General Assembly, which offers six IAU Symposia, some 25 Joint Discussions and Special Sessions, and individual business and scientific meetings of Divisions, Commissions, and Working Groups. The proceedings of Joint Discussions and Special Sessions are published in the Highlights of Astronomy series. 

Helios-A and Helios-B (also known as Helios 1 and Helios 2), are a pair of probes launched into heliocentric orbit for the purpose of studying solar processes. A joint venture of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and NASA, the probes were launched from the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Dec. 10, 1974, and Jan. 15, 1976, respectively.

Helios II is a military satellite for Earth observation. It is operating since April 2005.

It is operated jointly by France, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Italy.

The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey is a large-scale galaxy redshift survey which was carried out over 276 nights at the Anglo-Australian Telescope between Aug. 2006 and Jan. 2011.

The aim of the project is to analyze the galaxy distribution in  order to learn more about the nature of dark energy.

Skynet is a family of military satellites, now operated by Paradigm Secure Communications on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence, which provide strategic communication services to the three branches of the British Armed Forces and to NATO forces engaged on coalition tasks.