China's new medium space launcher, the Long March 7, should fly late next year, entering service in an initial version capable of lifting 13.5 metric tons (30,000 lb.) to low Earth orbit, making it significantly larger than current Chinese rockets. The launcher will have four boosters, says Shen Lin, the principal engineer at manufacturer CALT, adding that China is also planning new upper stages.

Engineers say money is flowing for family of vehicles that will include a super-heavy launcher....

Planetary scientists in the U.S. and Europe are smarting from a $226.2 million cut in NASA's requested funding for robotic Mars exploration. That drives the final nail in the coffin of a joint Mars effort with the European Space Agency and obscures the future of Mars exploration in general.

The promise that high-bandwidth satellites can bring fast, cheap Internet to the masses will be put to the test in 2012 as a new generation of Ka-band spacecraft enters service in the U.S. and Europe, with plans to expand into Russia, Australia and Latin America.

U.S. space-policy leaders remain divided over NASA's direction as President Barack Obama's first term winds down, with another slugfest between the White House and Congress over the agency's fiscal 2013 budget request likely this year.

For mobile satellite services provider Globalstar, this could be the year the Covington, La.-based company claws its way back from the brink.

Satellite operators see hopeful signs that their spacecraft eventually will play host to payloads supplied by cash-strapped governments trying to save a buck in today's tight budget environment, but so far concrete new deals have yet to materialize. In July 2011 Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, head of the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), set up a dedicated hosted-payload office (HPO) to look for military space missions that could take advantage of piggyback rides on other spacecraft, and to help develop and integrate the resulting payloads.

A sigh of relief swept the room last month at the European Space Agency's headquarters in Paris as top ESA and industry officials watched the signing of the 19-nation organization's largest and possibly most politically charged satellite contract.