Q&A with Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:10 p.m. EST Monday (0010 GMT Tuesday) with the JCSAT 18/Kacific 1 communications satellite, heading for a position in geostationary orbit to beam broadband signals across the Asia-Pacific. The launcher deployed the satellite into an on-target orbit, and the first stage returned to land on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Falcon 9 rocket’s main engines briefly ignited at launch pad 39A in a standard pre-launch test. This is the second time this booster has test fired its engines on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Spaceflight Now recently sat down with George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, to discuss the company’s recovery from a fatal crash of its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on a test flight last year and get an update on its air-launched rocket designed to carry small satellites into orbit.