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NASA has announced its plans for the next few years. It has announced it next five year's plans, programs of research and space missions and corresponding budgets. NASA has decided to diversify its focus to the missions to the international SpaceStation and flight beyond Earth's orbit in future. Certain new initiatives are expected to be included in the NASA's plan list.

Vodafone and Bharti Airtel may have to pay $3 billion each for the recent ongoing auction. Both Vodafone Group Plc and Bharti Airtel Ltd. are participating in the auction to offer faster data services in the Indian market. Apart from these two there are 15 other companies have also taken part in this 3G and WiMAX auction.

Analysts believe that the Govt. of India may charge as much as $3 billion each from these two telecom companies.

Two US-based private equity firms (PE), KKR and Bain, are going to sell their stakes in NXP. The two have taken this decision so that they are able to raise enough cash which can then be used to return to the investors or pay back the huge pile of debt that has come up.

NXP is a Dutch semiconductor company which was taken over by the two PE companies way back in 2006. And now, through stake sale they expect to raise close to $1 billion. Stake sale will use the IPO route for raising money, people close to the development said.

In 2009, US managed to be the number one country in the world in terms of installation of wind turbine power. The installations hit a record high even during the crisis, wind power advocators said.

As per the data given by American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), more than 1,000 Mega Watt (MW) of wind power was added. This brings the total wind power capacity to 35,000 MW. Such capacity was possible by adding 5,700 turbines, AWEA's annual report said.

Such huge capacity positions US ahead of China and Germany, the two nations which are doing a great deal in this field. Both of them have a capacity of 25.8 MW each.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is all set to invest $1.7 billion in a US-based project to extract gas from a sedimentary rock Shale. RIL has paired up with Atlas Energy Inc. for the project.

As per a statement from Atlas, the project, spread over Marcellus, certain parts of Pensylvania, New York and West Virginia, was potential enough to meet gas demand in US for nearly a decade.

The company further added that RIL would invest in the project for a 40 per cent undivided interest. The project stands on 300,000 acres of leasehold undeveloped land hold by Atlas.

While Maruti Suzuki has been able to outshine the counterparts by staying at its toes and even at the top slot in the Indian automotive market, but the situation is panning out to be tough for the company itself. As its sales grow, it is getting into the catch-22 situation due to the capacity constraints.

Notably, the company sold over a million cars in the FY 20009-10 and it is expecting 10% surge in the unit sales this fiscal. However, with the plants already operating at their 100% capacity, it is clear that the auto major is certainly not in its comfort zone right now.