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

A hold-down test-firing of a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at Cape Canaveral marked a major step in preparations for SpaceX’s 13th mission of the year, scheduled for liftoff Monday with a commercial communications satellite.

United Launch Alliance has begun accepting applications from colleges and universities across the U.S. to compete for free cubesat launch slots aboard upcoming Atlas 5 rockets.

A Soyuz booster set for liftoff Wednesday with a Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer, and a former NASA flight surgeon heading for the International Space Station arrived at its launch pad in Kazakhstan Monday.