NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) mission will spend an extra 28 days circling the Moon at low altitude to extend observations of the tenuous atmosphere for an additional light/dark lunar cycle. The extension will postpone Ladee’s anticipated impact with the surface until about April 21.

HOUSTON — Russia’s trash-laden Progress 52 capsule departed the International Space Station Feb. 3, opening a berthing port for the country’s first resupply mission of 2014. Progress 54 is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 5 at 11:23 a.m. EST, or 10:23 p.m. local time, initiating a four-orbit, 6-hr. automated rendezvous and docking at the ISS Pirs docking compartment. Progress 54 is scheduled to deliver 2.8 tons of fuel, research gear and other provisions to the six-person orbiting science laboratory.

NASA should have enough money in its fiscal 2014 appropriation to support development of at least two competing commercial crew vehicles, and the Senate panel that funds the U.S. space agency will try to keep that going in fiscal 2015, according to Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs it.

HOUSTON — NASA’s 2013 Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop produced nearly 30 recommendations for refining strategies to identify, capture and maneuver a seven- to 10-meter near-Earth object into lunar orbit for a visit by astronauts. The proposed undertaking has emerged from its first U.S. budget cycle, but is still in search of significant U.S. Congressional and international backing.

PARIS — France and Britain have signed a framework agreement on space cooperation in the areas of Earth observation, telecommunications, space-based weather forecasting and technology. The agreement, signed during a Franco-British defense summit held at RAF Brize Norton in southern England Jan. 31, includes an initial U.K. investment of £15 million ($25 million) for key instruments being developed for the next generation of European weather satellites.

A small Canadian electro-optical satellite has started contributing data to the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, monitoring orbiting objects at 6,000-40,000 km (3,700-24,850 mi.) as part of the North American effort to improve space situational awareness and prevent collisions.

NASA will spend $12.7 million on seven research projects intended to inaugurate the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-developed Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL), a fundamental physics payload scheduled for a 2016 launch to the International Space Station (ISS), where it will support studies of ultra-cold quantum gas phenomena in the absence of gravity. The funding should support the seven projects, five of them headed for the ISS and two for further ground development, for up to five years, NASA announced Jan. 29.

CYBER CHIEF: U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Michael Rogers has been nominated to replace Gen. Keith Alexander as the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the NSA and the chief of the Central Security Service. Rogers currently commands U.S. Fleet Cyber Command. This makes him the third person named Mike Rogers in a high-profile national security position. He joins lawmakers Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who leads the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who leads a House Armed Services panel on strategic forces.