RAF OAKHANGER, ENGLAND As the Royal Air Force awaits the launch of the first of three new communication satellites in January to replace the current aging Skynet 4 constellation, industry officials express confidence that the U.K., France and Germany will soon approve a multinational follow-on program.

LOS ANGELES Increasing dynamic pressure from continuing aerobraking maneuvers has almost fully deployed the balky solar panel on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, according to project officials. Glenn E. Cunningham, MGS project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said last week that the panel has been pushed to within about 2 deg. of its fully deployed position, although it still is not locked in place.

FORT WORTH As it moves forward with three new fighter programs, Lockheed Martin is developing virtual reality programming tools to cut its manufacturing costs, the fighters’ serviceability costs and improve its development cycle times.