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

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Friday afternoon, sending a Dragon cargo freighter on the way to the International Space Station as the launcher’s first stage booster returned to Earth aboard a floating platform.

The Starlink 10-41 mission saw the Falcon 9 rocket head out on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff happened on March 1 at 9:56:40 p.m. EST (0256:40 UTC).

NASA is gearing up for an intense few weeks of work aboard the International Space Station, staging three spacewalks, moving a docking port from one module to another to support commercial crew ferry ships and capturing an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship carrying nearly 4 tons of equipment and supplies.