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

The launch an Ariane 5 rocket with Brazilian and Korean communications satellites that was set for this week has been postponed indefinitely after protesters blocked access to the French Guiana spaceport.

Almost exactly three days after taking off a few miles to the north at the Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX’s historic first crew launch, a 15-story-tall Falcon rocket booster returned to Florida’s Space Coast Tuesday aboard a football field-sized drone ship.

The step-by-step stacking of United Launch Alliance’s final Delta 2 rocket was completed in June at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for liftoff Sept. 15 with an Earth science satellite for NASA.