File video: The fiery crash of a booster off the coast of Florida has resulted in the Federal Aviation Administration launching an investigation to find the cause.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – SpaceX says it’s ready to try again and launch Polaris Dawn, the first private spacewalking mission, after multiple delays due to Florida‘s recent rainy weather pattern.
SpaceX said it’s targeting the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employees Sara Gillis and Anna Menon. The Falcon 9 rocket will liftoff from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center launchpad 39A.
SpaceX is targeting the first launch window at 3:38 a.m. Tuesday but said additional launch times are available at 5:23 a.m. and 7:09 a.m. If the launch is delayed, the same times are available on Wednesday.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 28, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
Initially planned to launch on Aug. 27, the Polaris Dawn mission faced weather and technical delays. The company skipped any launch attempts last week as days of storms would have prevented a safe splashdown for the Dragon on either Florida coast in the event of a launch abort.
“The primary factor driving the launch timing for Polaris Dawn is the splashdown weather within Dragon’s limits. Unlike an ISS mission, we don’t have the option to delay long on orbit, so we must ensure the forecast is as favorable as possible before we launch,” Isaacman recently wrote on X.
The weather could again delay the Polaris Dawn launch. SpaceX said the weather is 40% favorable for liftoff.
FOX Forecast Center forecast for the Polaris Dawn launch window on Tuesday morning.
The FOX Forecast Center is forecasting storms over Florida’s Space Coast throughout Monday as launch preparations are underway. There may be a break in the rain early Tuesday, allowing SpaceX to threaten the needle and launch the rocket, but splashdown weather is also a factor in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
“Conditions at the possible splashdown sites for Dragon’s return to Earth remain a watch item,” the company said on X.
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.
The ambitious private mission has many goals, including a series of spaceflight firsts for private citizens and SpaceX.
Anna Menon during Polaris Dawn EVA spacesuit acceptance testing at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
(Polaris Program / John Kraus)
After launch, the SpaceX Dragons should reach an altitude of nearly 870 miles above Earth (1,400 kilometers), higher than any human spaceflight since the Apollo program. This will take them through part of one of the Van Allen Radiation belts, and the deeper orbit 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.
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.
The mission will last about six days and culminate in a Dragon splashdown in one of seven locations around Florida.
In the coming years, the Polaris Program will conclude with a human spaceflight on SpaceX’s Starship, which is still under development in Texas.