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COLORADO SPRINGS — Inspiration Mars, the bold plan to send a man and woman on a 501-day trip around the Red Planet beginning in January 2018, reports individuals and industry are offering their services for the task, including “hundreds” of couples who have qualifications that would put them in the running.

Also plans to trim facility expenses, spending on consultants

NO CONFLICT: French Prime Minster Jean-Marc Ayrault says there is no conflict between a new Europeanized variant of Soyuz and France’s plan to introduce a lighter, more modular successor to its Ariane 5 heavy-lift launcher, which will ultimately eliminate Europe’s need for the Russian medium-lift rocket.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Orbital Sciences Corp. believes it can sell space on the commercial cargo vehicle it has developed with NASA seed money as an orbiting laboratory once it is unloaded and unberthed from the International Space Station. The Orbital Sciences Antares medium-lift launch vehicle set for its inaugural flight next week won’t carry the Cygnus capsule developed to deliver cargo to the ISS, but the instrumented mass simulator it is set to place in orbit will remain there for several months before re-entering the atmosphere.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is working toward a full-scale turbomachinery test next year of the F-1B kerosene fueled rocket engine it is developing with Dynetics as a potential power plant for the advanced side-mounted boosters NASA will need to meet the 130-metric-ton congressional requirement for its planned Space Launch System.

GeoMetWatch will mount its first hyperspectral hosted payload on an AsiaSat commercial communications satellite set for launch in 2016, giving the Utah-based startup a view of the Asia/Pacific region for its weather-data service. The new spacecraft will be positioned at 122 deg. E. Long., where the Hong Kong-based satellite operator’s AsiaSat 4 is located today.

The White House is requesting $2 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather satellite programs in fiscal 2014, boosting funding for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite System (GOES-R) while trimming back the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). The moves are in line with the criticisms of an external review panel that last year deemed the agency’s satellite efforts “dysfunctional.” The White House is asking for $5.448 billion overall for NOAA in fiscal 2014.