NASA’s upcoming $17.5 billion request for funds in fiscal 2015 will include a request for “pre-formulation” work on missions to exploit recently discovered water geysers over the south pole of Europa and sophisticated techniques to gauge the effects of dark energy on the observable Universe, along with stay-the-course spending on continuing major programs.

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), a NASA-funded nonprofit, is seeking applicants for its First Award Program, which grants early career two-year research fellowships in support of competitively selected biomedical and biotechnical projects addressing health issues faced by astronauts assigned to long-duration or deep-space missions. Deadline for submissions is June 6, according to a Feb. 28 NSBRI announcement.

Japan launched the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) Earth-science spacecraft without a hitch Feb. 27, setting up unprecedented coverage from space of rain and snowfall from a slot in the sun-synchronous “A-train” satellite constellation.

The last of 33 NanoRacks’ cubesats commercially delivered to the International Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences‘ Orb-1 Cygnus mission in January were successfully deployed from the orbital lab’s Japanese Kibo module early Feb. 28.

A hurry-up launch in 2021 for a human flyby of Mars proposed by pioneer space tourist Dennis Tito would make a good “bridge” between the International Space Station and more sustainable missions closer to Earth, according to experts testifying before a skeptical House Science Committee Feb. 27.

DRYDEN RENAMED: NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., will be formally renamed the Armstrong Flight Research Center, in honor of the late Apollo 11 astronaut, on March 1. The late Hugh L. Dryden, the center’s namesake since 1976, will continue to be memorialized in the renaming of the center’s 12,000-sq.-mi. Western Aeronautical Test Range as the Dryden Aeronautical Test Range, NASA says. The redesignation of the center, which is located on Edwards AFB in Southern California, was directed in legislation drafted by Rep.

Roboticists developing satellite-servicing technology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have completed a ground-based teleoperations demonstration that transferred corrosive nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) through a standard satellite-fueling valve at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), using a robot controlled from Goddard.

Data mining the first two years of results from NASA’s Kepler planet-finding probe, using a statistical technique based on the discovery that multi-planet systems are more common than once thought, has confirmed 715 new exoplanets orbiting distant stars, scientists announced Feb. 26. Two papers to be published by the Astrophysical Journal outline the Kepler findings, the statistical technique derived from them and the results when the data were analyzed with it.