HOUSTON — Interrupted by the U.S. government shutdown in October, NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop reconvened late Nov. 20 as a second opportunity to influence the agency’s efforts to resume U.S. human deep space exploration, while addressing the impact hazards posed by near-Earth objects.

BEIJING — China’s forthcoming DFH-4S satellite bus will introduce new technologies for the country’s spacecraft industry, including advances in avionics and batteries, and a plasma propulsion system (PPS).

Dennis Tito, the original space tourist who is staking a big chunk of his investment-fund fortune to send a man and woman on a hurry-up Mars fly-around in 2018, has concluded he needs NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) to do the job, with $100 million a year in upper-stage upgrades over seven years. Tito, who paid Russia for a Soyuz ride to the International Space Station in 2001, released the results of a mission-design study Nov. 20 that he said would keep the U.S. ahead of Moscow in what he couched as a potential race to Mars.

HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station launched three CubeSats early Nov. 19, using a deployment mechanism aboard the orbiting lab’s Kibo Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) that was successfully demonstrated last year. A fourth satellite is scheduled for release early Nov. 20. The first wave, ejected with the Small Satellite Orbital Satellite Deployer (SSOSD) from the Kibo exposed facility at 7:17 a.m. EST, included:

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NEW DELHI — After the successful launch of India’s first Mars orbiter, scientists are planning the country’s next mission — this time to the Sun. On Nov. 18, solar physicists from across the country started three-day talks at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), based in the southern city of Bengaluru, to prepare for the country’s first solar mission, Aditya-1, which will carry equipment to study the Sun’s corona.

HOUSTON — Project Morpheus is returning to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center this week for several months of testing to demonstrate an autonomous, methane/liquid oxygen fueled precision planetary lander capability for future human as well as robotic missions. The first Morpheus lander was destroyed on Aug. 9, 2012, in a fiery crash within moments of lifting off from a Kennedy test area, cutting short an ambitious series of free flight tests.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s latest mission to Mars lifted off through scattered clouds Nov. 18, setting out on a 10-month voyage to discover what happened to the red planet’s water by literally sniffing its upper atmosphere. Liftoff of the Lockheed Martin-built Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) spacecraft from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral came at 1:28 p.m. EST, the opening of its 2-hr. launch window.