Q&A with Elon Musk after SpaceX’s first rocket landing

Bruce Banerdt leads the InSight science team, and is in charge of the lander heading for Mars to study the red planet’s interior structure, collecting data that should yield new information about the environment in the early solar system, when planets coalesced and formed 4.5 billion years ago.

The overnight launch marked the second Falcon 9 flight since the July 11 mishap that grounded the rocket. Liftoff happened at 1:09 a.m. EDT (0509 UTC).

For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule approached the International Space Station Monday for capture with the research lab’s robotic arm, delivering more than 4,300 pounds of food, experiments and spare parts. Future Dragon resupply missions will use a new spaceship design to automatically dock with the space station.