FILE PHOTO: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft on Sunday from Florida carrying more than 8,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station. About 8 minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 first stage came back for landing at Cape Canaveral.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – SpaceX is targeting Tuesday as the launch date for two of its employees and two other private citizens on the Polaris Dawn mission, which will include the first private spacewalk.
The Polaris Dawn mission was scheduled to launch on Aug. 26 from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center launchpad 39A. SpaceX announced this week they are now targeting Tuesday, Aug. 27, at 3:38 a.m. ET. The four-person crew arrived in Florida on Monday.
The launch date and time are somewhat flexible because the Falcon 9 is launching the Crew Dragon spacecraft into Earth orbit instead of to the International Space Station, which requires an instantaneous launch window to catch up with the orbiting laboratory.
“The new date allows additional time for teams to complete preflight checkouts ahead of next week’s launch,” SpaceX said on X, formerly Twitter.
Polaris Dawn Mission Commander Jared Isaacman said SpaceX teams worked hard to determine the launch date and time because they will be flying higher than any human spaceflight since the Apollo program, taking them through part of one of the Van Allen Radiation belts about 870 miles above Earth.
“A lot of smart people at SpaceX figured out the optimal times for us to launch,” Isaacman said on Monday.
What is the Polaris Dawn mission?
Polaris Dawn is part of a series of private spaceflights funded by Isaacman, an American businessman and founder of Shift4Payment. This will be Isaacman’s second spaceflight. In 2021, he funded and flew on a SpaceX spaceflight known as Inspiration4 with three other private astronauts.
In addition to Isaacman, the three other crew members include mission pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both mission specialists.
Polaris Dawn crew from left to right: Jared Isaacman, Sarah Gillis, Anna Menon and Scott Poteet after arriving in Florida on Aug. 19, 2024. (Photo credit: John Kraus/Polaris Program)
(Polaris Program / John Kraus)
The ambitious private mission has many goals, including a series of spaceflight firsts for private citizens and SpaceX.
After launch, the SpaceX Dragons should reach an altitude of nearly 870 miles above Earth (1,400 kilometers). The deeper orbit is a significant mission milestone for several reasons, as it is more than three times farther than the International Space Station.
The second major objective of the mission is completing the first commercial spacewalk at 430 miles above Earth using the newly developed SpaceX microgravity spacesuits. The extravehicular activity, or EVA, suits look similar to the black-and-white flight suits the astronauts wear for launch but with the addition of life-support systems, temperature control and communication. Essentially, the suits must act like a mini spacecraft when a person is in the vacuum of space.
Anna Menon during Polaris Dawn EVA spacesuit acceptance testing at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
(Polaris Program / John Kraus)
“It’s been a really impressive amount of work by the SpaceX team to test the suit for flight. As a crew, we’ve spent probably more than 100 hours in this suit at this point,” Gillis said. “We’re really looking forward to testing this first generation of suit.”
On the third day in space, two space flyers will remain in the spacecraft, but all four will be exposed to the vacuum of space, requiring spacesuits for everyone.
Two SpaceX Dragon spacecraft being prepared for launch. The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled to launch on Aug. 27. SpaceX is targeting late September to launch NASA’s Crew-9 mission.
(SpaceX)
The mission will last about six days, ending with a Dragon splashdown in one of seven locations around Florida.
In the coming years, the Polaris Program will culminate with a human spaceflight on SpaceX’s Starship, which is still under development in Texas.