GENOA — Even as France’s Safran considers a bid for it, Avio says it is still planning at least a partial initial public offering this year, one it had postponed from the end of 2011 due to Europe’s financial crisis.

NASA will aim for a March 14 air-launch of its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, spacecraft on a mission begun in 2003 to identify high-energy X-ray sources—including distant black holes—with unprecedented sensitivity.

The U.S. Air Force is embarking on an accelerated analysis of alternatives for a future defense weather satellite constellation after initiating the termination of Northrop Grumman’s Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) contract.

A Jan. 24 DAILY story misidentified the EELV engine being offered at a discount to United Launch Alliance. It is the RS-68 engine, which powers the core stage of the Delta IV.

HOUSTON — The crew of the International Space Station joined with launch teams in Kazakhstan early this week for a series of preparations leading to the late Jan. 27 arrival of Russia’s first Progress resupply mission of 2012. The unpiloted space freighter, loaded with nearly three tons of dry goods, research gear, propellant, water and compressed air, is scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Jan. 25 at 6:06 p.m. EST, or Jan. 26 at 5:06 a.m. at the desert launch site.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, long a center for sounding rocket science campaigns, is becoming a site for small satellite launches as well, according to NASA’s new chief technologist. Mason Peck, a Cornell professor who assumed a two-year assignment managing NASA’s open-ended technology-development effort Jan. 3, toured the venerable launch site on Virginia’s eastern shore Jan. 24, and found it a promising spot for smallsat work.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While U.S. launch officials slowly make headway in their efforts to curb rising launch costs, some are calling for a better compromise between mission assurance and affordability as the Air Force studies a possible rate increase to 10 national security space launches per year.

A solar flare that erupted Jan. 22 has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue warnings of a geomagnetic storm that will wash over Earth on the morning of Jan. 24, potentially upsetting power grids, navigation and satellites. For spacecraft, geostationary satellites are most at risk because their orbits at 22,300 mi. above the equator put them beyond the protection of the planet’s radiation belts. Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) generally operate within the radiation belts.