Q&A with Kurt Eberly, Orbital ATK’s Antares deputy program manager

The year ended with a deluge of big news, reminding us of the risks of spaceflight and the thin margins between success and failure on the final frontier. 2014 was also a year of breakthroughs in the exploration of the solar system and the future of human spaceflight.

SpaceX engineers are preparing to mount a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center’s historic launch pad 39A for the first time this week as the company declares the modified facility ready to support a new era of commercial space missions.

Running a day late after aborting a rendezvous to resolve a navigation glitch, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft made a smooth final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday, floating in range of the research lab’s robot arm for capture to deliver 2.7 tons of supplies and research experiments.