NASA’s Human Research Program and its nonprofit external research affiliate, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, are soliciting independent research proposals in a dozen topic areas affecting astronaut physical and mental health on long-duration missions, including recent findings that some space travelers experience blurred vision and return to Earth with lingering symptoms.

The Senate quietly approved two last-minute changes to the defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 aimed at boosting space-launch industries in California and Alabama. The amendments were approved as part of a package and were not publicly debated, but neither involved government funding.

NASA plans to spread $1.1 billion in seed money among Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to continue the development of commercial spacecraft to launch crews to the International Space Station as early as 2017.

PUSHED OUT: The NROL-36 mission to launch a classified satellite from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for the National Reconnaissance Office has been pushed back to no earlier than Aug. 14. Col. Nina Armagno, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing, says additional time is needed to address a range instrumentation issue that prompted a launch scrub on Aug. 2. Originally, the Air Force expected to be ready to launch as early as Aug. 4. There are no problems with either the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket or the NROL-36 payload.

Preparing for the planned Aug. 6 landing of the car-sized rover in a crater near the Martian equator.

HOUSTON — A NASA-funded biomedical institute is helping small Maryland and Florida companies develop better methods of wound healing and rehydration for astronauts. The non-profit National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is making the $100,000 matching awards to assist the companies in moving specialized health care products between the Earth and space under its Space Medicine and Related Technologies Commercialization Assistance Program, or Smartcap, competition.

Oceaneering Space Systems drew positive reviews from NASA chief technologist Mason Peck this week

Students will be given the opportunity to send up small payloads, as well as fly up themselves, when suborbital commercial space flight becomes available as early as late 2013, according to some of the leading companies in the field. At an Aug. 1 hearing of the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and XCOR Aerospace all said they are counting researchers and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students among the projected clients for their vehicles.