BRUSSELS and PARIS — The European Council is planning a drastic funding reduction to its showcase Earth observation program, according to a draft of the EU’s nearly €1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) budget proposal for 2014-20, cutting more than €2 billion from the €5.8 billion planned for operations and sustainment of the Copernicus program, including money earmarked for development of follow-on spacecraft. The draft, obtained following two days of meetings in Brussels Feb. 7-8, indicates Copernicus will receive just €3.786 billion for the seven-year period.

The Republican chairmen of the two House committees with NASA oversight responsibility have charged publicly that senior leadership at the space agency may have been involved in the leak of classified information to China and other nations, and that a federal criminal probe into the charges has been dropped under “political pressure.”

Paves way for vehicle’s initial sample-collection efforts

Has long been underpinned by government spending

Top human spaceflight manager says ISS will drive nascent market

Fourth batch of satellites launched Feb. 6 atop a Russian Soyuz

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has developed the nation’s first undergraduate degree program in commercial space operations, which it plans to introduce at the school’s Daytona Beach, Fla., campus next fall.

The new partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) on the Orion deep-space crew capsule opens the door for more international cooperation in human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, U.S. space officials say. Just as the “critical path” to completion of the International Space Station was shared by U.S. and Russian launch vehicles, future exploration missions based on the four-seat Orion capsule will require European hardware in the capsule’s service module.