Q&A with Mark Mulqueen, Boeing’s space station program manager

After years of delays, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System moon rocket rolled out of its New Orleans factory Wednesday, heading for a NASA site in Mississippi for a test-firing before engineers hope to ship the rocket to its Florida launch base by this fall.

An Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship packed with 3.7 tons of cargo, supplies and experiments rode an Antares rocket into orbit from Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Sunday, setting course on a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station.

Two pilots flew Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocketplane to the edge of space Saturday over New Mexico on the first human spaceflight from the company’s new home base at Spaceport America.