NEW DELHI — India on Sept. 11 unveiled its Mars Orbiter, which is due to launch later this year to search the red planet’s atmosphere for methane, considered a “precursor chemical” for life. “The Mars orbiter is in the final stages of testing for launch between Oct. 21 and Nov. 19 on board a rocket with five scientific instruments to conduct various experiments after a nine-month voyage to the red planet,” says S.K. Shivkumar, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) satellite center director.

The Sept. 17 return to flight of Russia’s Proton rocket was postponed Sept. 11 for technical reasons associated with the Russian launch vehicle. Marketed by International Launch Services (ILS) of Reston, Va., the commercial mission was slated to loft The EADS-Astrium-built Astra 2E satellite for fleet operator SES of Luxembourg. “The launch date will be determined at a later time,” ILS said in a Sept. 12 statement.

The Pentagon and NASA will spend $44 billion developing and launching spacecraft over the next five fiscal years, including a $7 billion chunk to develop NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

LOS ANGELES — SpaceX is gearing up for the first launch of its upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., carrying a Canadian satellite, on Sept. 15. “We are looking towards launch at the weekend,” says Adam Harris, SpaceX government sales vice president. “It’s on the pad at Vandenberg AFB and things [are] looking really great there,” he adds. The upgraded Falcon 9 launch, which is the vehicle’s inaugural deployment from the U.S. West Coast, will loft the Canadian-built CAScade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer (Cassiope) satellite.

HOUSTON — Russia’s Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft departed the International Space Station with a thee-man U.S. and Russian crew late Sept. 10, descending into Kazakhstan under parachute to bring Expedition 36, a 166-day mission, to a successful close. Cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy were quickly greeted by helicopter-borne, Russian-led recovery teams as the capsule touched down southeast of Dzhezkagan at 10:58 p.m. EDT, or Sept. 11 at 8:58 a.m. local Kazakh time.

Mexico will launch Morelos-3 communications satellite on Atlas V

Planetary scientists are preparing for at least 100 days of intensive study in the Moon’s tenuous atmosphere, after a spectacular nighttime launch from Wallops Island, Va., on a solid-fuel Minotaur V rocket that was visible up and down the U.S. East Coast.

STENNIS space center, Miss. — Upgrades to NASA’s enormous Apollo-era test stand at Stennis Space Center are on track for ground runs of the core stage of the agency’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle starting in 2016, according to engineers working on the project.