I am an aerospace engineer, on the Communications Engineering side.
I recommend staying looking at Space Daily (http://www.spacedaily.com/) for latest information and industry trends. They have an automated daily email feed that you can sign up for. Lockheed in San Jose is a major player in satellites, as is Northrop Grumman in Manhattan Beach. Raytheon and Lockheed do a lot of Missile Defense. General Dynamics in Phoenix and Viasat in Carlsbad also comes to mind.
Also concur with the industry being cyclic, and it is now trending downward. The DoD is trending away from “esoteric” solutions, and moving more toward providing information to the troops at the ground level. As a result, there seems to be a pinch at the Satellite and Missile Defense sectors.
