Q&A with Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator on NASA’s Dawn mission

The privately-funded Israeli Beresheet lunar lander is ready for its historic mission to the moon, aiming to become the first space probe to land on another planetary body without government funding.

SpaceX’s launch team fueled up a Falcon 9 rocket on a California launch pad Thursday, fired the booster’s nine Merlin engines, and passed a key preflight test for the first time since a Falcon 9 exploded during a similar practice countdown in September.

Fresh off its first terrestrial test drive, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was displayed to media last week at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California before it’s packed up and flown across the country to Cape Canaveral in February to begin final launch preparations for liftoff in July.