NEW DELHI — India on Oct. 2 moved its Mars Orbiter to the launch pad at Sriharikota range for its scheduled launch to the red planet on Oct. 28. After a series of tests, scientists at the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) gave the green light to transport the 1,340-kg orbiter to the launch pad for integration with the 350-ton rocket, which is an extended version of the space agency’s workhorse launcher, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL), an ISRO scientist says.

BEIJING — Chinese engineers are proposing a Moon rocket more powerful than the Saturn V of the Apollo missions and matching the payload of NASA’s planned Space Launch System (SLS) Block 2, the unfunded launcher that would put the U.S. back into super-heavy space lift.

NEW DELHI — India will make a fresh attempt to loft its GSAT-14 communications satellite aboard a Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) on Dec. 15, nearly two months after its launch was called off due to a fuel leak in the rocket’s second stage, a senior space scientist says. On Aug. 19, a leak was spotted in the fuel system of the second stage during the pre-launch pressurization phase on the vehicle. Propellants were drained and the GSLV was moved back to the vehicle assembly building to assess the cause of the leak.

LOS ANGELES — SpaceX says post-launch indications of a larger-than-expected debris field scattered in the orbital path of its recently launched Falcon 9 v1.1 upgraded launch vehicle do not represent a possible explosion of the rocket’s second stage.

Orbital Sciences has satisfied COTS program requirements

Russia’s Proton M launch vehicle returned to flight Sept. 30, nearly two months after a July 2 mishap sent the heavy-lift rocket and three Russian Glonass M satellites crashing to the ground at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Managed by commercial launch services provider International Launch Services (ILS) of Reston, Va., the Baikonur mission sent the Astra 2E commercial communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit for Luxembourg-based SES, the world’s second-largest fleet operator by revenue.

BEIJING — Top scientists here are citing China’s burgeoning population, growing energy consumption and severe pollution problems to press the case for more research in space solar power (SSP) technology, which would place large solar-energy collectors in orbit to beam gathered energy to Earth as microwaves or laser light.

BEIJING — Engineers in Russia believe the Zarya cargo module, the oldest pressurized module on the International Space Station (ISS), can last in orbit until about 2028 — twice its design service life — despite microcracking in the hull during pressure and loads cycling of a test article on the ground.