PARED PROJECTIONS: A little more than one year after its KA-SAT broadband satellite entered service, fleet operator Eutelsat is lowering its revenue expectations. The Paris-based company says the all-Ka-band spacecraft is still expected to generate €100 million ($122 million) in new business, but not until 2015, one year later than projected. In its first year of the satellite’s service, Eutelsat’s Tooway satellite broadband business had generated €49.9 million in revenue as of June 30.

PASADENA, Calif. — Scientists and engineers on the Mars Science Lab mission are pleased with their “Sol 0” position on the planet’s surface, as checkout and early science of the planned two-year exploration mission begins.

NEW DELHI — With NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory having just touched down at Gale Crater on Mars, the Indian government now has given the final green light for its first orbiter mission to the red planet in November 2013. In December 2011, India’s Space Commission gave its approval for the project, which is estimated to cost around 4.5 billion rupees ($80.7 million). The government has allocated 1.25 billion rupees for the initial phase of the mission for India’s current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2013.

NASA’s Human Research Program and its nonprofit external research affiliate, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, are soliciting independent research proposals in a dozen topic areas affecting astronaut physical and mental health on long-duration missions, including recent findings that some space travelers experience blurred vision and return to Earth with lingering symptoms.

The Senate quietly approved two last-minute changes to the defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 aimed at boosting space-launch industries in California and Alabama. The amendments were approved as part of a package and were not publicly debated, but neither involved government funding.

NASA plans to spread $1.1 billion in seed money among Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to continue the development of commercial spacecraft to launch crews to the International Space Station as early as 2017.

PUSHED OUT: The NROL-36 mission to launch a classified satellite from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., for the National Reconnaissance Office has been pushed back to no earlier than Aug. 14. Col. Nina Armagno, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing, says additional time is needed to address a range instrumentation issue that prompted a launch scrub on Aug. 2. Originally, the Air Force expected to be ready to launch as early as Aug. 4. There are no problems with either the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket or the NROL-36 payload.

Preparing for the planned Aug. 6 landing of the car-sized rover in a crater near the Martian equator.