Teledyne Brown Engineering will continue to support International Space Station (ISS) operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center under a mission operations and integration contract worth as much as $120.1 million over the next five years. The Huntsville, Ala.-based company will support all phases of flight under the cost-plus-award fee award, including mission preparation, crew and flight controller training, and meeting other requirements in real time.

Across-the-board budget cuts beginning March 1 could squeeze NASA funding by $14 billion over the next eight years, according to a report by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. A “constraint” in the bill that imposes sequestration mandates that funding for the Census Bureau follow its traditional pattern, the report says. The census is funded at low levels during the early years of the decade and higher levels later as the next census deadline draws near.

Asteroid 2012 DA14, speeding toward a record close approach to the Earth next week, poses no apparent danger to humans or orbiting satellites and will likely depart on a course-altering trajectory that should not bring it this way again, according to experts preparing for the encounter. Nonetheless, the attention-grabbing episode promises to serve as a reminder of a larger threat the world’s space powers are just beginning to size up.

BRUSSELS and PARIS — The European Council is planning a drastic funding reduction to its showcase Earth observation program, according to a draft of the EU’s nearly €1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) budget proposal for 2014-20, cutting more than €2 billion from the €5.8 billion planned for operations and sustainment of the Copernicus program, including money earmarked for development of follow-on spacecraft. The draft, obtained following two days of meetings in Brussels Feb. 7-8, indicates Copernicus will receive just €3.786 billion for the seven-year period.

The Republican chairmen of the two House committees with NASA oversight responsibility have charged publicly that senior leadership at the space agency may have been involved in the leak of classified information to China and other nations, and that a federal criminal probe into the charges has been dropped under “political pressure.”

Paves way for vehicle’s initial sample-collection efforts

Has long been underpinned by government spending

Top human spaceflight manager says ISS will drive nascent market