NEW DELHI — Indian space officials say the country’s first Mars orbiter is still on track for launch on Oct. 28 and will not be affected by the U.S. government shutdown, which has forced mission partner NASA to halt most of its operations. “We are going ahead with the Mars Orbiter Mission as planned. There is no delay,” D.P. Karnik of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) tells Aviation Week. “The launch window will remain open till Nov. 19.”

The European Space Agency (ESA) and SES have signed a contract to design Europe’s first all-electric satellite platform, the Luxembourg-based fleet operator announced Oct. 15. Under the terms of the agreement, SES will serve as prime contractor for ESA’s Electra project, working with satellite builder OHB System AG of Bremen, Germany, to develop the small- to medium-sized spacecraft bus.

Top officials of China’s human spaceflight organization met counterparts from Europe, Russia and Canada during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Beijing last month, pushing their agenda of international cooperation and receiving at least friendly hearings from some of the major space powers.

SAFELY UNSAFED: NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno probe exited safe mode Oct. 11, according to a statement from the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) of San Antonio, the institutional home to the principal investigator for the $1.1 billion NASA-funded mission to study the atmosphere, origins and evolution of Jupiter. “The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional,” SWRI reported. The spacecraft swung by Earth Oct. 9 as part of a gravity assist strategy to reach Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

Ad Astra Rocket Co., developers of the Vasimr commercial solar-electric propulsion (SEP) system, is proposing launching a Space Plasma Laboratory (SPL) to the International Space Station that would address fundamental questions of solar physics while flight-qualifying SEP technologies to advance human exploration and take on other deep-space roles.

Gregory Johnson, the newly named president and executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), hopes the International Space Station (ISS) can be a proving ground for a new type of commercial spaceflight just getting underway.

A LEGEND PASSES: Mercury astronaut M. Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth, died Oct. 10 in Denver of complications following a stroke. He was 88. A naval aviator during the Korean War who went on to become a test pilot, Carpenter conducted some of the first scientific experiments in space and ate some of the first solid food consumed there. His sole spaceflight — three orbits over five hours on May 24, 1962 — ended 250 mi.

L’Garde Inc., prime contractor for NASA’s Sunjammer solar sail mission, has successfully executed a partial ground deployment of the mechanisms that comprise the centerpiece of the deep-space propulsion demonstrator. Sunjammer, a $27 million NASA Science and Technology Mission Directorate initiative, is tentatively scheduled for a January 2015 liftoff as a secondary payload aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Deep Space Climate Observatory (Discovr) launch.