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

Spaceflight Now recently sat down with George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, to discuss the company’s recovery from a fatal crash of its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on a test flight last year and get an update on its air-launched rocket designed to carry small satellites into orbit.

Stormy weather across Florida’s Space Coast forced SpaceX to call off the long-awaited launch of two astronauts aboard the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, the first piloted flight to orbit from U.S. soil in nearly nine years.

The Starlink 15-12 mission added another 27 broadband internet satellites to SpaceX’s megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened Dec. 13, at 9:49 p.m. PST (12:49 a.m. EST / 0549 UTC on Sunday, Dec. 14)