Bad weather has postponed the American spacecraft manufacturer, SpaceX, launch of the first private spacewalk, which is led and funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, the company announced late Tuesday.
The Polaris Dawn mission was scheduled to depart from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Wednesday local time. An earlier attempt on Tuesday was canceled due to a helium leak.
is preparing to launch its Polaris Dawn mission, which features an all-civilian crew aiming for the first private citizen spacewalk.**
The launch is scheduled for Wednesday at 3:38 am local time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a four-hour launch window and backup options available on Thursday if needed.
According to a US Space Force forecast, weather conditions are 85 percent favorable for the launch. An earlier attempt on Tuesday was canceled due to a helium leak in a line connecting the tower to the rocket.
The mission will use a Falcon 9 rocket, and the SpaceX Dragon capsule is expected to reach a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), the highest for a crewed mission in over 50 years, since the Apollo program.
Mission commander Jared Isaacman will lead his four-member crew in a historic mission featuring the first-ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts, using newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.
The team includes a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel mission pilot Scott Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, and mission specialist and a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, medical officer Anna Menon.
They have completed over two years of training for this significant mission, accumulating hundreds of hours in simulators, skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and climbing an Ecuadorian volcano.
Polaris Dawn will be the first of three missions in the Polaris program, a partnership between the founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, Isaacman and SpaceX.
Isaacman did not disclose his total investment in the Polaris Dawn project, but reports indicate he spent around $200 million on the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, which was the first all-civilian orbital mission.
During its first day, Polaris Dawn will reach its maximum altitude, briefly entering the Van Allen radiation belt, an area filled with high-energy charged particles that can pose health risks to humans over long durations.
On the third day, the crew will wear their advanced EVA spacesuits, which feature heads-up displays, helmet cameras, and enhanced joint mobility systems, and will take turns going outside the spacecraft in pairs.
Each crew member will spend 15 to 20 minutes in space, at an altitude of 435 miles above Earth.
Their agenda also includes testing laser-based satellite communication between the spacecraft and Starlink, SpaceX’s network of over 6,000 internet satellites, aiming to enhance communication speeds in space. Additionally, they will conduct nearly 40 scientific experiments.
Among these experiments are tests using contact lenses embedded with microelectronics to continuously monitor changes in eye pressure and shape.
After six days in space, the mission will wrap up with a splashdown off the coast of Florida.
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