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

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent into space from Cape Canaveral with the ABS 2A and Eutelsat 117 West B communications satellites.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT) Wednesday with two Boeing-built communications payloads for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite. A secondary objective to recover the first stage offshore in the Atlantic Ocean failed.

Astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins ventured outside the lab complex Friday for a long-awaited spacewalk to attach a new docking mechanism, the first of two that will be used by U.S. crew ferry ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to and from the outpost, ending NASA’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.