Q&A with Opher Doron, general manager of IAI’s space division (members only)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, then the launcher’s first stage returned to landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station after sending a Dragon supply ship toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station.

The Israeli satellite operator Spacecom has tapped a Falcon 9 rocket to deliver its next geostationary communications satellite to orbit in 2019 using approximately $50 million in credits the company paid SpaceX for a mission last year that ended in an explosion on the launch pad.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and carried 10 Iridium communications satellites toward a perch in low Earth orbit, then the launcher’s first stage nailed a landing on a platform positioned in the Pacific Ocean.