Q&A with Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX (members only)

SpaceX is targeting Jan. 7 for launch of its first Crew Dragon commercial ferry ship on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, NASA announced Wednesday, a major milestone in the agency’s drive to end its sole reliance on Russian Soyuz crew ships for carrying astronauts to orbit.

SpaceX’s eighth operational cargo mission to the International Space Station is set for liftoff with nearly 3.5 tons of research investigations, crew provisions and an experimental expandable habitat for the International Space Station.

Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, built two small satellites awaiting launch Thursday night on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket on a mission to test the effectiveness of a drag-inducing device that could help remove spacecraft from orbit.