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.

NEW DELHI — Boeing is preparing to test fly the first of the 10 C-17 heavy-lift aircraft it is building for the Indian air force (IAF) by January 2013. The major join ceremony — which integrates the forward, center and aft fuselages and the wing assembly — was held on July 31 at Boeing’s factory in Long Beach, Calif.

NEW DELHI — India hopes to develop the next version of its joint hypersonic cruise missile project with Russia, the BrahMos II, in the next five years. “Having developed the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile at Mach 2.8, it is logical that we proceed to hypersonic missile with speed of more than Mach 5,” says A. Sivathanu Pillai, missile scientist and chief executive officer at BrahMos Aerospace. “With storable fuel, it is possible to achieve up to Mach 8,” he tells Aviation Week.