Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)

NASA managers Thursday cleared the $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe for launch early Saturday on a daring mission to “touch the sun,” repeatedly flying through its outer atmosphere to find out why the blazing corona is millions of degrees hotter than our star’s visible surface.

Chinese officials on Friday released more imagery from the Chang’e 4 mission, a robotic lander and rover exploring the far side of the moon after a successful landing Jan. 3.

Closing out 52 days at the International Space Station, an automated Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft left the research outpost Sunday to climb into a higher orbit for deployment of six CubeSats and further engineering experiments, before de-orbiting over Pacific Ocean later this month.