NEW DELHI—India has changed the track of its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) to avoid any possible collision with debris from a fast-approaching comet that will whiz past the red planet on Oct. 19, a senior space scientist says. “The spacecraft has been taken to a position farthest from the tail of the comet Siding Spring so that it doesn’t affect the satellite as it comes close to Mars,” says A.S. Kiran Kumar, director of the Space Application Center, a research unit of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

NEW DELHI—India successfully test-launched Nirbhay—its first indigenously developed, long-range, subsonic cruise missile—more than a year after it failed to hit its target during its first launch. The 1,000-kilometer (620-mi.)-class missile, developed by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), took off from the launch complex at Chandipur in the eastern Odisha state at 10:04 a.m. on Oct. 17, a DRDO official says.

NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) has ordered systematic technical checks on all Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircraft currently in service after one of the front-line twin-engine fighters crashed soon after takeoff on Oct. 14.