Q&A with John Elbon, VP and general manager of Boeing’s space exploration division

SpaceX carried the Israeli-owned Amos 17 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral into orbit Tuesday on top of a Falcon 9 launcher, nearly three years after a SpaceX rocket explosion destroyed a predecessor payload before it could get off the ground.

United Launch Alliance encapsulated the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R, GOES-R, on Oct. 21 at the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Wednesday at 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT), launching with two Boeing-built communications satellites for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite.