Q&A with Tim Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Relativity Space (members only)

SpaceX broke ground on a new commercial spaceport on the shores of South Texas, committing to the construction of the world’s first privately-owned satellite launch pad scheduled to be operational as soon as late 2016.

Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, launched a reusable New Shepard sub-orbital rocket from the company’s west Texas launch site Tuesday, boosting an unpiloted crew capsule out of the dense lower atmosphere for a brief foray into space before a parachute descent to Earth.

A bad input to the Ariane 5 rocket’s guidance system that was missed during pre-launch quality control checks caused the launcher to deviate from its expected flight path and place two commercial communications satellites in the wrong orbit Jan. 25, Arianespace announced Friday.