Q&A with Sara Seager, deputy director of science on NASA’s TESS mission (members only)

SpaceX launched its 16th mission of the year early Monday, lighting up a nighttime sky with a Falcon 9 rocket to deliver a Canadian-owned commercial communications satellite to orbit.

In the final months of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder mission, scientists have found an unexpected use for the trailblazing testbed for a future gravitational wave observatory by tracking the tiny dings made by microscopic particles that strike the spacecraft in deep space, exploiting the impacts to learn about the population of dust grains cast off by comets and asteroids across the solar system.

Cape Canaveral was the departure point for more space launches in 2015 than in any year since 2003, with 17 takeoffs by Atlas, Falcon and Delta rockets hoisting U.S. military satellites, commercial payloads and cargo for the International Space Station.