The U.S. Air Force's tanker contract has been awarded, Airbus and Boeing have moved to upgrade the A320 and 737, and NASA's space shuttle has flown its last mission. It's time to move on to 2012 and the next round of big developments in the aerospace and defense industry. Here are 12 to keep an eye on.

A new opportunity is on the horizon for companies hoping to sell unmanned aircraft to support the missile defense mission in the U.S. This is welcome news for companies seeking to break into this space or expand this type of work because late last year the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) selected incumbent Boeing to manage the massive Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for another seven years.

The launch industry is still recovering from a downturn that reduced the number of competitors in the market and forced the remaining players to restructure. These companies also have become more reliant on government spending. A recovery is being driven by the reduction of launch vehicle operators and an increase in launch opportunities, but an expected decline in satellite purchases and an increase in the number of launch vehicle operators could fuel greater competition.

Launch industry managers worldwide will go after government markets as the industry continues its recovery from a downturn that has brought a reduction in the number of competitors in the market and forced the remaining players to restructure. While the reduction of launch vehicle operators and an increase in launch opportunities is driving recovery for the survivors, an expected decline in satellite purchases and rise in the number of launch vehicle operators down the road could fuel greater competition in coming years.

Although space assets play a vital military role on the battlefield, militaries are being forced to balance increased demand for satellite capabilities with tightening budgets. The current drive of governments worldwide to rein in spending will have an effect on military satellite procurement during the next decade.

“It hasn't been splatted by the Internet” is how a friend once described an Ethiopian village she'd visited. Her short sentence reveals the nostalgia for a simpler life felt by many in the developed world who have never experienced it themselves, and a truth about the economic position of the so-called dark continent.

Controllers guiding NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) are planning their next trajectory-correction maneuver on March 26, after a major burn Jan. 11 sent the big rover and its Atlas V upper stage on their separate ways. A 3-hr. series of thruster pulses set up the rover for an Aug. 6 powered descent into Gale Crater, while the upper stage was left to proceed away from the planet. The Nov. 26 launch was deliberately targeted away from Mars to prevent the upper stage from plummeting into the Martian environment with Earthly contaminants.

A senior aviation security inspector from Qatar has attended a Boeing “Educators to Space Camp” programme, held in Huntsville, Alabama - a first for the Gulf country.