The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) issued a request for proposals Oct. 17 for potential remote-sensing missions that could fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The nonprofit group tasked with managing research on the orbiting outpost’s U.S. national lab segment says it expects to award $1.5 million in grants to selected Earth-observation projects proposed in response to the request for proposals.

Two weather satellites received rare mention in re-start law

HOUSTON — Workers eagerly returned to their jobs at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Oct. 17, following a 16-day furlough, though many remained apprehensive about future budget clashes. The 3,200 civil servants among Johnson’s 14,000-member workforce have been assured by Congress they will be paid for the interlude, potentially along with their next scheduled paycheck on Oct. 25.

Europe’s Rosetta comet probe remains in a deep sleep as it winds through the coldest part of its trajectory through the Solar System to a year-long encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but ground crews are getting ready for its awakening next January, as it begins to move back toward the Sun.

The next two Falcon 9 v 1.1 launches must perform flawlessly for upstart rocket provider Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to be eligible for certification to carry critical U.S. national security payloads as planned in its cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Air Force. The agreement calls for SpaceX to execute three successful Falcon 9 v1.1 launches, two of which are to be consecutive. The service also is assessing certain engineering and process data for the company to verify compliance with certification criteria.

Italian space agency ASI has awarded Thales Alenia Space of Rome and Compagnia Generale per lo Spazio (CGS) of Milan a contract to build the Multi-Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (Metis) instrument, slated to fly on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter mission in 2017.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded EADS-Astrium three contracts valued at a combined €414 million ($560 million) through 2014 for continued work on a midlife upgrade of the Ariane 5 rocket and to begin designing its successor, the Ariane 6. The first two contracts cover the continued development of the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (€106 million) and the sub-assemblies common to it and Ariane 6 (€278 million).

Year-long Mars mission analog will take place in northern Canada.