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

Speaking publicly for the first time since a Falcon 9 rocket failure that destroyed a Dragon cargo capsule for the International Space Station, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Tuesday that engineers are still piecing together what happened during the June 28 accident in hopes of announcing more details within a few days.

A Falcon 9 rocket powered by a reused first stage booster rolled out Tuesday to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a day before its scheduled liftoff with an Airbus-built communications satellite designed for television broadcasts over the Americas.

The Starlink 12-18 mission included 13 satellites that have Direct to Cell capabilities. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 1:53 p.m. EST (1853 UTC).