Q&A with Alain Charmeau, CEO of Airbus Safran Launchers

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, did his best to set low expectations heading into the first test flight of the gargantuan Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket this week. “Just don’t blow up the launch pad,” Musk said.

SpaceX launched its 16th mission of the year early Monday, lighting up a nighttime sky with a Falcon 9 rocket to deliver a Canadian-owned commercial communications satellite to orbit.

Launch teams are readying three rockets for a series of blastoffs this week from Cape Canaveral to loft a classified orbiting spy platform for the U.S. government, a long-delayed Argentine radar imaging payload, and the next set of Starlink broadband satellites.