Musk's SpaceX Launches Rocket Carrying Supplies to Space Station

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. successfully launched its second rocket in as many months on Sunday, bringing it a 10th of the way to its goal of deploying 20 to 24 rockets this year.

The launch of the rocket, which is ferrying supplies destined for the International Space Station, was halted Saturday about 13 seconds before its scheduled liftoff because of an issue with the second-stage engine. On Friday, the rocket was investigated for a “very small” leak in the upper stage before it was deemed adequate to fly, Musk said on Twitter.

The launch -- SpaceX’s first from historic "39A," the storied complex at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida that was home to the famed Apollo missions -- was the company’s second since a fireball destroyed a different rocket and its payload on a Florida launch pad in September. SpaceX, which completed just eight missions in 2016, successfully returned to the skies last month with the delivery of 10 communications satellites into orbit.

SpaceX has contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration valued at $4.2 billion to resupply the Space Station using its unmanned Dragon spacecraft and ultimately to ferry astronauts to the station from the U.S. with a version of Dragon that’s capable of carrying crews. The Government Accountability Office said Thursday in a report that SpaceX and competitor Boeing Co. won’t be certified this year to send astronauts to space and may be delayed into 2019 because of potential safety hazards.

Musk, who’s also CEO of Tesla Inc., founded SpaceX 15 years ago with the goal of sending humans to Mars. The closely-held company makes rockets at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and has contracts to launch commercial satellites as well as fly missions for NASA and the U.S. military.