Dawn is a robotic NASA spacecraft tasked with the exploration and study of Vesta and Ceres, the two largest members of the asteroid belt.

Launched on September 27, 2007, the probe entered orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011.

Dawn left Vesta on September 5, 2012, on a course for Ceres, which it is scheduled to reach in February 2015.

Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dawn is NASA’s first purely exploratory mission to use ion propulsion. The spacecraft was constructed with some European cooperation, with components contributed by partners in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Dawn was the first spacecraft to visit Vesta, and is scheduled to be the first to visit Ceres. If it successfully reaches Ceres, it will also be the first spacecraft to orbit two separate extra terrestrial bodies, using ion thrusters to travel between its targets. Previous multi-target missions using conventional drives, such as the Voyager program, were restricted to flybys.

Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a planned Sun-observing satellite, under development by the European Space Agency (ESA). The main mission scenario is a launch by an Atlas V from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in January 2017. 

SolO is intended to perform detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and nascent solar wind, and perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun, which is difficult to do from Earth, both serving to answer the question 'How does the Sun create and control the heliosphere?'

The XENON Dark Matter Search Experiment aims to construct a next-generation dark matter detector, which will use liquid xenon as the target material for finding Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The collaboration is led by the Columbia University.

A 15 kg liquid xenon detector was installed at Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy during March 2006, and searchedfor WIMP interactions until October 2007. No WIMP signatures were found, the limits on WIMP-nucleon cross sections extend down to below 10⁻⁴³cm² for a 30 GeV/c² WIMP mass.

The current phase, XENON100, for a total of 150 kg of liquid Xenon, is running at the Gran Sasso Laboratory. XENON100 is expected to achieve a factor of 50 better sensitivity, compared to XENON10. The next generation XENON detector will reach another order of magnitude sensitivity to cover SUSY parameter space down to 10⁻⁴⁶cm² by 2012.

The collaboration is currently designing Xenon1t whose fiducial volume will contain 1 ton of ultra radio-pure liquid Xenon.

Participating universities in XENON100 include: Columbia University (USA), Johannes Gutenberg Universitat, Mainz (Germany), Gran Sasso National Laboratory (Italy), Max-Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik (Germany), Rice University (USA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), SUBATECH, Universite de Nantes (France), University of Bologna andINFN-Bologna (Italy), University of California - Los Angeles (USA), University of Coimbra (Portugal), University of Munster (Germany), University of Zurich (Switzerland),Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel)

Participating laboratories in XENON10 include: Brown (USA), Case Western Reserve (USA), Columbia (USA), Gran Sasso National Laboratory (Italy), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA), Rice (USA), Coimbra (Portugal), University of Zurich (Switzerland), and Yale (USA).

Loral Space & Communications Inc. is a satellite communications company. The company was formed in 1996 from the remnants of Loral Corporation when Loral divested its defense electronics and system integration businesses to Lockheed Martin.

Loral has an investment in Telesat Canada in partnership with the Public Pension Investment Board of Canada. The company also participates in a number of international and domestic joint ventures, including an ownership stake in XTAR.

In Nov. 2012, Loral Space & Communications Inc. sold its manufaturing subsidiary SS/L to MDA.

see: "Loral closes sale of Space Systems/Loral to MDA" (Press release - 2 November 2012)

EchoStar Corporation is a technology company that is the owner and maintainer of the satellite fleet for closely affiliated Dish Network Corporation (satellite broadcaster).

The company also designs and manufactures set-top boxes to receive the Freeview broadcasts in the United Kingdom, as well as receivers for Bell TV in Canada. EchoStar also owns Sling Media, which designs and builds the Slingbox TV streaming device, and satellite internet provider Hughes Communications. EchoStar was formerly the parent company of Dish Network until the unit was spun off in December 2007.

New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra, S/2011 P 1, and S/2012 P 1, with an estimated arrival date at the Pluto–Charon system of July 14, 2015. NASA may then also attempt flybys of one or more other Kuiper belt objects, if a suitable target can be located.

New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.26 km/s (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph) after its last engine was shut down. Thus, the spacecraft left Earth at the greatest-ever launch speed for a man-made object. It flew by the orbit of Mars on April 7, 2006, Jupiter on February 28, 2007, the orbit of Saturn on June 8, 2008; and the orbit of Uranus on March 18, 2011. As of February 2012, its distance to Pluto is less than 10 AU (more than 20 AU from Earth).

Cassini–Huygens is a NASA-ESA-ASI robotic spacecraft sent to the Saturn system. It has studied the planet and its many natural satellites since arriving there in 2004, also observing Jupiter, the Heliosphere, and testing the theory of relativity. Launched in 1997 after nearly two decades of gestation, it includes a Saturn orbiter (called Cassini) and an atmospheric probe/lander for the moon Titan (called Huygens), which entered and landed on Titan in 2005. Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2012.

It was launched on October 15, 1997 and entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004, after an interplanetary voyage which included flybys of Earth, Venus, and Jupiter.

On December 25, 2004, Huygens separated from the orbiter at approximately 02:00 UTC. It reached Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005, when it entered Titan's atmosphere and descended downward to the surface. It successfully returned data to Earth, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System.

Sixteen European countries and the United States make up the team responsible for designing, building, flying and collecting data from the Cassini orbiter and Huygens probe. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the United States. Huygens was developed by the European Space Research and Technology Centre, whose prime contractor was Alcatel of France. Equipment and instruments for the probe were supplied by many countries. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) provided the Cassini probe's high-gain radio antenna, and a compact and lightweight radar, which serves as a synthetic aperture radar, a radar altimeter, and a radiometer.

The Intrepid 1U CubeSat Suite represents a compact and capable complete 1U system.

Tyvak have bundled the Tyvak™ Intrepid System Board with a custom UHF Communication System (70cm Amateur Band), Side Panels with Sensors, Torquers, Solar Cells, and a Monopole Antenna, a Battery Module, and a structure that makes optimal use of limited volume. The highly integrated nature of the design enables mission concepts previously unfeasible in only a 1U volume, passing launch savings to the end user. With a custom Embedded Linux platform interfacing all the subsystem components, developers can hit the ground running from day one in a familiar development environment.

This product is part of the “Pico-Class” products provided by the company Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems LLC.

The “Pico-Class” products focuses on providing core capabilities that represent the smallest packaging solution.

The Intrepid Embedded Linux System Board reimagines the CubeSat, providing capabilities integrated as a single board solution. The design fully conforms to the CubeSat specification, and solves many of the design challenges developers face by including the Electrical Power System, Command and Data Handling System, a custom Embedded Linux OS with device drivers already in place, and post-deployment power-up interfaces. Standard Interfaces include two ultra-low profile daughter boards for custom communication systems, battery modules, or payload electronics, and payload interface connectors providing power and data. Two high-pin count umbilical connectors provide complete debugging access to data lines and peripherals provided to the payload even when fully integrated with the most complex systems.

This product is part of the “Pico-Class” products provided by the company Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems LLC.

The “Pico-Class” products focuses on providing core capabilities that represent the smallest packaging solution.

Blue Origin is a privately funded aerospace company.

Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight, the company has built and flown a testbed of its New Shepard spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas facility.

The company was awarded a contract in 2009 by NASA under the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations.