At NASA, which celebrated its 55th anniversary by furloughing 97% of its workforce, concern is centered on two programs trying to stay on schedule for their launch windows.

STILL SPENDING: A U.S. government shutdown and debt ceiling fight on Capitol Hill notwithstanding, nominal federal spending plans for fiscal 2014 and beyond entail $117 billion in defense information technology (IT) contracting opportunities, according to federal IT consulting company Deltek. Another $38 billion will come from civilian agencies like NASA, FAA and others. Furthermore, despite a common industry complaint that budget caps in recent years have essentially derailed new-start programs, that is not the case. Deltek said in a webinar to clients Oct.

BEIJING — With the success of its high-resolution Pleiades optical imaging satellites, French space agency CNES is preparing a demonstration of a potential follow-on system that would launch in the early 2020s, most likely on a European Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. The OTOS technology demo, formerly known as CXCI, is the precursor to a dual system designed to capture up to 750 images per day per satellite at 20- to 30-cm ground resolution and a swath width of 15-20 km in panchromatic mode.

PARIS — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says a new version of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle aborted a planned restart of its upper stage engine during an otherwise successful Sept. 29 debut of the upgraded rocket.

HOUSTON—The shutdown of the U.S. government that began Oct. 1 may have stalled NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop, but not the determination of two dozen of the 140 participants to collaborate independently on how to address the near-Earth object collision threat. The three-day, NASA-sponsored, invitation-only workshop was shuttered after the Sept. 30 half-day opening session. The agency expects to reconvene the final two days of the dual-track program via webcast, though the details are yet to be formulated

NEW DELHI — India on Oct. 2 moved its Mars Orbiter to the launch pad at Sriharikota range for its scheduled launch to the red planet on Oct. 28. After a series of tests, scientists at the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) gave the green light to transport the 1,340-kg orbiter to the launch pad for integration with the 350-ton rocket, which is an extended version of the space agency’s workhorse launcher, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL), an ISRO scientist says.

BEIJING — Chinese engineers are proposing a Moon rocket more powerful than the Saturn V of the Apollo missions and matching the payload of NASA’s planned Space Launch System (SLS) Block 2, the unfunded launcher that would put the U.S. back into super-heavy space lift.

NEW DELHI — India will make a fresh attempt to loft its GSAT-14 communications satellite aboard a Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) on Dec. 15, nearly two months after its launch was called off due to a fuel leak in the rocket’s second stage, a senior space scientist says. On Aug. 19, a leak was spotted in the fuel system of the second stage during the pre-launch pressurization phase on the vehicle. Propellants were drained and the GSLV was moved back to the vehicle assembly building to assess the cause of the leak.