A Massachusetts Institute of Technology student believes that with enough warning — as much as 20 years — a paintball-shooting spacecraft might be the best way to divert an asteroid from an extinction-level collision with Earth.

HOUSTON — NASA says operations aboard the International Space Station should not be affected if the SpaceX CRS-2 cargo delivery mission currently slated for January slips as a result of the ongoing investigation into the first-stage engine loss that occurred on the Oct. 7 CRS-1 mission. The supply cache delivered to the station in early to mid-2011 by the now-retired space shuttle placed the six-person orbiting science lab on a firm footing well into 2013, according to Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager.

Orbital Technologies Corp. (Orbitec), a Madison, Wisc.-based space-technology company, has flight tested a version of the 30,000-lb.-thrust liquid-propellant rocket engine it is developing for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Upper Stage Engine Program (Ausep) and other in-space applications.

SASSENAGE, France — A Franco-German accord as to how the European Space Agency (ESA) will pay its portion of common operating costs associated with the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017-20 could founder under a roughly €480 million ($650 million) shortfall in ESA’s €4 billion budget for the orbiting outpost through the end of the decade.

SASSENAGE, France — With less than a month before European Space Agency (ESA) ministers meet to set the agency’s multiyear spending plan, a Franco-German compromise is emerging in the debate over the future of European launchers.

To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Oct. 30 - Nov. 1 — 15th Biennial Helicopter Military Operations Technology Specialists' Meeting, Crowne Plaza Williamsburg, Fort Magaruder, Va. For more information go to www.vtol.org/events/helmot-xv. Oct. 30 - 31 — 2012 Coast Guard Innovation Expo, Virginia Beach Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Va. For more information go to www.ndia.org/exhibits/3230.

ANOTHER HURDLE: The proposed $1 billion sale of Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) has cleared its antitrust review at the U.S. Department of Justice, SSL parent Loral Space & Communications announced Oct. 26. Loral now expects that any further requirements for the deal, “all of which are within the parties’ control, will be satisfied.” The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States cleared the sale last month. SS/L has said it expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter.

HOUSTON — Spacewalking U.S. and Japanese astronauts plan to re-activate an older thermal control system radiator as part of a strategy to circumvent a small but growing ammonia leak on the International Space Station’s oldest solar power truss. The six- to seven-hour outing by NASA’s Sunita Williams, the station’s commander, and Akihiko Hoshide is scheduled for Nov. 1 at 8:15 a.m. EDT and will take the two astronauts to the far port side of the orbiting science lab’s 356-ft.-long solar power truss.