Q&A with Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight Industries (members only)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, built with extended propellant tanks and engines rated for higher thrust, is poised for liftoff on the company’s first launch since a catastrophic failure in June grounded the commercial booster.

Watch a Falcon 9 rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral on December 8, 2010, at 10:43 a.m. EST (1543 GMT) on the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) Demo Flight 1. It was the first test flight of the Dragon cargo ship.

SpaceX’s fifth Falcon 9 launch in a little more than three weeks delivered 52 more Starlink internet satellites and two small hitchhiker payloads to orbit after a booming blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday evening.