Q&A with Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO

The U.S. Defense Department’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into whether the Pentagon’s contracts with United Launch Alliance were properly awarded after a former ULA executive implied the government rigged a recent procurement in favor of the company.

Engineers clad in clean suits finished stowing last-minute cargo into SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Friday, including 40 mice and bacterial research specimens, a day before it is scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station in the first flight from the Kennedy Space Center’s historic Apollo-era launch pad 39A since 2011.

The launch comes following a scrub for weather of the NG-21 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff of the Starlink 11-1 mission happened at 12:24 a.m. PDT (3:24 a.m. EDT, 0724 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E).