Video: Vice President Al Gore attends DSCOVR launch

Expect fewer missions to study planet Earth in NASA’s future, agency officials told an advisory group last week. A blueprint of the Trump administration’s proposed NASA budget would cancel four Earth science missions already in the agency’s portfolio and slash research funding geared toward future projects.

A novel NOAA climate observatory with a unique past arrived at Cape Canaveral to begin two months of launch preparations, testing, and fueling before liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Depending on how you count it, SpaceX launched its 100th kerosene-fueled Merlin 1D rocket engine on a Falcon 9 rocket Feb. 11, underscoring what it says is an accelerated flight regime for the centerpiece of the company’s propulsion shop.