NASA’s Kepler planet-finder has started an extended mission that could last as long as four more years, after finding more than 2,300 candidate extra-solar planets in its 3.5-year primary mission by measuring the faint flickers of distant stars. The candidate list, which must be confirmed by Earth-based observations, includes “hundreds” of planets that are roughly the same size as Earth. A prime objective of the extended mission will be to find a true Earth analog in terms of size, star type and orbit.

The U.S. and Australian militaries have agreed to place two key U.S. space systems in Australia. A U.S. Air Force C-band space-surveillance radar – which can track up to 200 objects a day and can help identify satellites, their orbits and potential anomalies – will move from Antigua to Western Australia in 2014 and will increase coverage of space objects in the Southern Hemisphere, the Pentagon says. It will be the first low Earth orbit space surveillance network sensor in that hemisphere and will help track “high-interest” launches from Asia.

Test flights of the Lynx Mark I are scheduled to begin in early 2013

The bad news: U.S. space is heading toward the so-called fiscal cliff

Orbiter completed switch to backup primary computer earlier this week

Growing CO2 will induce a gradual contraction of the thermosphere

Dual launch took place Nov. 10 on an Ariane 5 from the Guiana Space Center

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