Italian space agency ASI has awarded Thales Alenia Space of Rome and Compagnia Generale per lo Spazio (CGS) of Milan a contract to build the Multi-Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (Metis) instrument, slated to fly on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter mission in 2017.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded EADS-Astrium three contracts valued at a combined €414 million ($560 million) through 2014 for continued work on a midlife upgrade of the Ariane 5 rocket and to begin designing its successor, the Ariane 6. The first two contracts cover the continued development of the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (€106 million) and the sub-assemblies common to it and Ariane 6 (€278 million).

Year-long Mars mission analog will take place in northern Canada.

NEW DELHI — Indian space officials say the country’s first Mars orbiter is still on track for launch on Oct. 28 and will not be affected by the U.S. government shutdown, which has forced mission partner NASA to halt most of its operations. “We are going ahead with the Mars Orbiter Mission as planned. There is no delay,” D.P. Karnik of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) tells Aviation Week. “The launch window will remain open till Nov. 19.”

The European Space Agency (ESA) and SES have signed a contract to design Europe’s first all-electric satellite platform, the Luxembourg-based fleet operator announced Oct. 15. Under the terms of the agreement, SES will serve as prime contractor for ESA’s Electra project, working with satellite builder OHB System AG of Bremen, Germany, to develop the small- to medium-sized spacecraft bus.

Top officials of China’s human spaceflight organization met counterparts from Europe, Russia and Canada during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Beijing last month, pushing their agenda of international cooperation and receiving at least friendly hearings from some of the major space powers.

SAFELY UNSAFED: NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno probe exited safe mode Oct. 11, according to a statement from the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) of San Antonio, the institutional home to the principal investigator for the $1.1 billion NASA-funded mission to study the atmosphere, origins and evolution of Jupiter. “The spacecraft is currently operating nominally and all systems are fully functional,” SWRI reported. The spacecraft swung by Earth Oct. 9 as part of a gravity assist strategy to reach Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

Ad Astra Rocket Co., developers of the Vasimr commercial solar-electric propulsion (SEP) system, is proposing launching a Space Plasma Laboratory (SPL) to the International Space Station that would address fundamental questions of solar physics while flight-qualifying SEP technologies to advance human exploration and take on other deep-space roles.