While NASA is placed on the back burner due to U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to cut the agency's planetary science funding, its private counterpart SpaceX has been green-lit to return to space.

The United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)-class missions to the company: DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) and STP-2 (Space Test Program 2). The missions will be launched on SpaceX's Falcon vehicles in 2014 and 2015, respectively, according to a release.

For more on the mission, check out the video above. Then, tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, jurvetson