Science, human-exploration and technology managers at NASA are casting a wide net for input into the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), issuing a broad area announcement for concept studies that include using commercial space vehicles to capture a near-Earth space rock and deploying secondary payloads as far afield as the moons of Mars for mineral prospecting as well as planetary science.

HOUSTON — Significant cost uncertainty and seemingly optimistic scheduling are just two of the concerns raised over NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) by members of the near-Earth object (NEO) community in a new report. The report is the result of the Target NEO 2: Open Community Workshop organized last year in response to the exploration initiative unveiled by the space agency in April 2013.

SOLAR ORBITER: NASA has negotiated a $172.7 million contract with United Launch Services LLC, the contracting arm of United Launch Alliance, to prepare and launch the U.S./European Solar Orbiter Collaboration mission in 2017 on an Atlas V. Under the deal, the company will handle spacecraft processing, payload integration, launch and related services for the mission, which will study the Sun and its outer atmosphere with high-resolution imagery and in-situ measurements in orbit. The mission will use an Atlas V 411 flying from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.

NASA’s planned Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (Wfirst) would be greatly enhanced with optical systems donated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), although such upgrades will introduce greater complexity and cost, according to a National Research Council (NRC) assessment. Wfirst is a flagship-level mission intended to follow the James Webb Space Telescope for studies of dark energy, planetary architectures of other solar systems and stellar evolution.

Commercial remote-sensing-services provider DigitalGlobe has confirmed that the satellite images it provided to Australian search-and-rescue authorities in the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were captured on March 16 by its WorldView-2 satellite at a panchromatic resolution of approximately 50 cm. “Working with our customers, DigitalGlobe continues to task our satellites to collect imagery of a wide area that includes the waters around where the possible debris was identified yesterday,” the company said in a March 20 statement.

India is making headway toward launching Astrosat, the country’s first satellite devoted to astronomy, which will look at the universe in X-ray, ultraviolet and visible light bands, a senior space scientist says. Astrosat, a multi-wave-length observatory in space, will be launched with six instruments aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. “It is getting ready now,” Radhakrishnan says. “It will be integrated by 2015.”

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A roundup of timely insights from recent aerospace and defense industry research.