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

Moving closer toward launch Monday with a South Korean communications satellite, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired its nine Merlin main engines Thursday on a launch pad in Florida in a key preflight readiness test.

In the home stretch of nearly a half-year on the International Space Station, four astronauts suited up and rode their SpaceX-owned Crew Dragon “Resilience” spaceship to a new docking port outside the orbiting research lab Monday, a first-of-its kind maneuver for the new generation of commercial crew spaceships.

The mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base was the seventh flight for the NRO in 2024 and included 20 Starlink satellites. Liftoff from pad 4 East occurred at 12:10 a.m. PST (3:10 a.m. EST, 0810 UTC).