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Ideal weather predicted for Falcon 9 launch Sunday
Meteorologists predict mostly sunny skies, mild temperatures and light winds Sunday for the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California's Central Coast with a $364 million oceanography satellite for U.S. and European science institutions.

Jason 3 pre-launch news conference
The pre-launch news conference for the Jason 3 ocean altimetry mission, scheduled for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (Membership required.)

Spacewalk terminated due to spacesuit water leak
Flight controllers ordered two astronauts to terminate a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Friday after one of them reported a small amount of water leaking into his space helmet.

NASA splits space station cargo deal three ways
An unpiloted space plane developed by Sierra Nevada Corp. will join cargo carriers built by SpaceX and Orbital ATK to resupply the International Space Station beginning in 2019, NASA announced Thursday.

Astronauts to repair station electrical circuit on Friday spacewalk
Two space station astronauts are gearing up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk Friday to replace a presumably shorted out solar array voltage regulator that knocked one of the lab's eight power channels out of action late last year.

Photos: Jason 3 oceanography satellite encapsulated
The Jason 3 oceanography satellite, a joint project between U.S. and European weather agencies, is closed up inside the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket awaiting launch from California's Central Coast on Sunday.

NASA publishes tantalizing close-ups of dwarf planet Ceres
Imagery from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, now in its closest orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres, reveal textures, landscapes and bright streaks possibly made of salts exposed by violent collisions with asteroids.

Hold-down firing completed ahead of Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX's launch team ran through a traditional preflight test Monday, putting a Falcon 9 rocket through a mock countdown, loading it with propellant and briefly firing its nine engines on a launch pad in California ahead of this weekend's liftoff with a U.S.-European oceanography satellite.

Offshore barge landing targeted after next Falcon 9 launch
Nearly a month after nailing a landing a rocket landing at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX plans to steer the next flight of a Falcon 9 booster toward a recovery vessel in the Pacific Ocean after a Jan. 17 blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

U.S. lab generates first space-grade plutonium sample since 1980s
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has produced a sample of plutonium-238, the radioactive isotope used to power deep space missions, good news for future NASA space probes heading to destinations starved of sunlight.