NASA’s Technology Capabilities Assessment Team is finding new acceptance of the agency’s need to improve efficiency by eliminating duplication across its scattered field centers, with some center directors actually willing to give up assets if they can use the savings to fund their core competencies.

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Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched its first Falcon 9 v1.1 mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit Dec. 3, marking the Hawthorne, Calif.-based startup’s entry into the commercial launch market and positioning it to unseat United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that launches most NASA, U.S. Air Force and intelligence community missions.

Comet Ison, once hailed as a potential “comet of the century” for amateur sky watchers, faded dramatically after executing a Nov. 28 hairpin turn that took it through the Sun’s million-degree corona, leaving little optimism that any significant remnant will be visible to the naked eye late this week in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere.

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NASA has failed to anticipate probable changes in funding for space science in its next strategic plan, increasing the likelihood that important exploration capabilities will fall by the wayside and “a generation of scientists” may be lost in some disciplines, according to a highly critical outside review of the plan draft.

GLSV LAUNCH: India will make a fresh attempt to launch its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) in January, carrying the GSAT-14 communications satellite, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) says. The exact date and time has yet to be determined. The announcement comes more than three months after a previous launch attempt was called off due to a fuel leak in the rocket. On Aug. 19, a leak was spotted in the fuel system of the second stage during the prelaunch pressurization phase.

LOS ANGELES — Blue Origin, the secretive commercial space company established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is readying for qualification tests of its liquid hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine for a suborbital flight following completion of a key ground demonstration that simulated a full mission of its New Shepard vehicle from launch to vertical landing.