SpaceX on Sunday plans to make its second attempt at setting down a reusable Falcon 9 rocket on a floating landing platform as part of the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission from Cape Canaveral, Fla., NASA said.

The private space firm has been staging a series of Falcon 9 landing tests during recent launches for NASA and commercial satellite clients. Following several years of short-range tests with its Grasshopper reusable rocket, SpaceX began incorporating landing capabilities in its Falcon 9 first-stage booster for official missions, orchestrating controlled splashdowns in the Atlantic Ocean.

In early January, SpaceX attempted its first landing of a Falcon on a "drone spaceport ship," part of a cargo run ferrying about 5,000 pounds of supplies and scientific equipment to the International Space Station (ISS). The reusable rocket made it to its watery target but came down too hard during the landing and was destroyed.

SpaceX hopes to save considerable money in future launches by using rockets that can land at sea or on the ground and then be used again.

Now the company is ready to take another shot at landing a Falcon rocket safely. DSCVR, a joint mission of NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, aims to place a satellite at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point some 930,000 miles from Earth, where it will monitor "space weather" like solar winds and coronal mass ejections, as well as observing atmospheric and climatic conditions on Earth.

Sunday's launch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. Eastern.

Meanwhile, SpaceX and Boeing last week announced timetables for testing their NASA-commissioned deep-space crew capsules with an eye on launching the first manned test flights in 2017. SpaceX will use its future Falcon Heavy rocket to launch its "DragonRider" capsule, capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to the ISS and more distant destinations in space.

SpaceX plans to incorporate reusable rocket tech in the Falcon Heavy's twin first-stage boosters and its second-stage booster. The company recently produced an animation of how that tech would workcheck it out below.