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

Two spacewalkers attached a new docking port to the International Space Station Friday, clearing the way for U.S. crew ferry ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX to begin test flights to the lab complex next year.

An Ariane 5 rocket journeyed from its assembly hangar to a nearby launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday, a day before the heavy-duty launcher is scheduled for liftoff with the first in a new generation of high-capacity communications satellites for Intelsat.

Two U.S.-built Intelsat communications satellites destined for different missions fired into space from French Guiana just after sunset Wednesday, vaulting due east over the Atlantic Ocean before separating from their Ariane 5 launcher right on target in geostationary transfer orbit.