4K Video: Watch the Falcon 9 test fire its 1st stage engines (members only)

Up to 24 launches are planned from Cape Canaveral in 2015, thanks to jam-packed manifests for SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to send up satellites for the U.S. military, NASA and commercial telecom operators.

Boeing officials said Wednesday that the company is targeting Dec. 17 for the launch of the first unpiloted orbital test flight of the new Starliner crew capsule from Cape Canaveral on a week-long demonstration mission to the International Space Station, a precursor to a mission with astronauts next year.

An impromptu repair job Thursday appears to have stopped a leak in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked to the International Space Station, and the crew was back on its normal schedule Friday carrying out research and making preparations for the arrival of a Japanese cargo ship next month.