Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

The mission comes on the heels of SpaceX having to stand down from launching the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission due to weather concerns. The lost booster, tail number B1062, was aiming for a record 23rd landing on the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ when it collapsed and exploded.

SpaceX’s ground team hydraulically hoisted a 213-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket vertical at pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center before dawn Monday ahead of a planned liftoff with a space station-bound robotic resupply craft.

The launch of SpaceX’s next 60 Starlink satellites will wait for better weather and sea conditions after currents were too strong for the company’s rocket landing platform to hold position in the Atlantic Ocean for a launch attempt Thursday.