GREENBELT, Md. — The discovery of water geysers over the south pole of Jupiter’s moon Europa has spurred NASA managers to begin working in earnest toward a New Frontiers-class flyby mission there in the 2020s.

BEIJING — Japan’s proposed H-X rocket program is moving ahead, with country’s space agency calling for a private company to develop, build and operate the family of space launchers. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, prime contractor and operator of the current H-IIA and H-IIB launchers, is the only conceivable supplier for the H-X, which will presumably be given the permanent name H-III when full-scale development begins.

HOUSTON — NASA’s $886 million portion of President Obama’s $56 billion, government-wide Opportunity, Growth and Security (OGS) initiative would be spread across seven areas — most notably the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to restore domestic human launch capability to the International Space Station (ISS). Split equally between defense and non-defense programs, OGS could raise NASA’s proposed $17.5 billion stay-the-course budget for 2015 by 5%, or to a level the agency would not otherwise approach until 2019.

NASA is not planning for a disruption in the U.S.-Russian partnership that controls the International Space Station, despite the continuing military confrontation between Russia and the Ukraine over control of the Crimean Peninsula. Bolden noted that the ISS partnership has persisted through difficult times before during 13 years of joint operation and occupancy of the station, including the tense confrontation in 2008 between Russia and the U.S. over the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which resisted an invasion by Russian forces.

PARIS — The success of back-to-back launches of commercial communications satellites on Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rockets in December and January has drawn barbs from competitors in the commercial launch industry. Stephan Israel, chairman and CEO of European launch service provider Arianespace, has repeatedly criticized Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX for charging its U.S. government customers roughly twice the cost of a commercial Falcon 9 launch, which the company advertises for $56.5 million.

The news is in the details of NASA’s $17.5 billion, stay-the-course budget request for fiscal 2015. The request tries to maintain pace on all of the agency’s major priorities: the James Webb Space Telescope, Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule, along with the International Space Station (now extended until 2024) and commercial crew access to it.

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A seven-camera video system has confirmed deployment of a 9-meter mesh antenna on the Sirius FM-9 satellite-radio spacecraft, setting the Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) platform for service from geostationary orbit. Designed and delivered by Ecliptic Enterprises Corp., a Pasadena, Calif.-based company that manufactures in-space video systems for spacecraft and launch vehicles, the cameras verified that the reflector and boom hinges on the large antenna deployed correctly, followed by the large, unfurlable mesh reflector.