The crew of SpaceX’s next space mission is scheduled to wait an extra day before launching into space.
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission — the first in history to feature a private spacewalk — was scheduled to launch on Monday, Aug. 26, but will now not launch until Tuesday, Aug. 27. The shift comes two days after the Polaris Dawn crew arrived in Florida for the final phase of their pre-mission preparations.
The delay was announced Wednesday evening (August 21), in a post on SpaceX’s X, formerly known as Twitter, accompanied by a mission preview video highlighting the crew, the modified Dragon capsule, and SpaceX’s new extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits.
“The new date allows additional time for teams to complete checks ahead of next week’s launch,” SpaceX wrote in a later post, explaining the reason for the 24-hour schedule change.
The mission will lift off from Launch Complex 39A, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The four-hour launch window for Polaris Dawn will open Tuesday morning (Aug. 27) at 3:38 a.m. EDT (0738 GMT), and it will begin a five-day mission that includes the first-ever spacewalk by private astronauts.
The Polaris Dawn mission is funded by American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who serves as the mission’s commander. Dawn will be the second crewed mission that Isaacman has paid for, and his second trip to space. His first mission, Inspiration4, launched the first all-civilian spacecraft in 2021 and helped raise $250 million in donations for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dawn is the first of three planned launches for Isaacman’s Polaris program, all of which aim to advance private space exploration, expand scientific research into life in microgravity, and continue to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Joining Isaacman on this mission is retired U.S. Air Force (USAF) Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, who serves as the mission’s pilot, as well as mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. Gillis and Menon are both SpaceX’s principal space operations engineers and will be the company’s first employees to fly into space.
The crew will launch into a highly elliptical orbit, quickly raising their altitude to about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), where they will complete a number of Scientific experimentsAt that distance, the Polaris Dawn crew will be farther from Earth than anyone has flown since the Apollo missions ended in 1972 — making Menon and Gillis the first women in history to fly that far.
The Polaris Dawn crew will also make another historic first: the first-ever spacewalk for all civilians. Dawn was originally scheduled to launch in 2022, but was repeatedly delayed as SpaceX developed and tested its new EVA suit and modified the interior of the mission’s Dragon capsule to expose it to the vacuum of space.
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The most important test of Polaris Dawn will be the SpaceX EVA spacesuit, which will take place on the third day of the mission. Visually, the spacesuit looks similar to SpaceX’s IVA (Intravehicular Activity) suits, which are worn only inside the spacecraft. Opening the Dragon hatch to expose the cabin and its occupants to the harsh environment of space means redesigning the spacecraft’s interior and upgrading the spacesuits with an improved thermal management system that uses additional insulating materials, as well as a new coating on the suit’s helmet visor.
The spacewalk is scheduled to take two hours, starting with cabin depressurization and repressurization, with two Polaris Dawn crew members fully exiting the spacecraft. The mission will conclude two days later, with a parachute landing at one of a handful of potential landing zones off the coast of Florida.
The next Polaris launches have yet to reach any concrete goals or framework. However, Isaacman has expressed interest in providing maintenance or support for some of NASA’s legacy missions already in orbit, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, and has stated his intent for the third Polaris mission to be the first crewed launch of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.
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