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SpaceX is delaying the launch of the historic Polaris Dawn mission by a day to give teams more time to complete preflight checkouts.
The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company had been targeting Monday, August 26, for the launch of the all-civilian mission, which involves the first-ever commercial spacewalk. But on Wednesday it announced that it’s now targeting Tuesday, August 27 for liftoff.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who is helping to fund the private mission and who is also part of the crew, said in response to the new launch schedule: “We will happily take an extra day to ensure readiness.”
The mission, which SpaceX previewed in a cinematic video shared on Wednesday, will also see the four crew members fly SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to its furthest point from Earth, about 435 miles (700 kilometers).
Pushing the excitement dial all the way up to 11, Musk wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “This will be the first spacewalk by a commercial company and the furthest from Earth anyone has traveled in over half a century!”
The mission will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center using a Falcon 9 rocket to power the Crew Dragon and its occupants to orbit. They’ll stay in space for about five days before returning in a parachute-assisted splashdown landing, in the same way that the Crew Dragon brings astronauts back from the International Space Station.
Isaacman has already been to space once, after leading a crew of non-professional astronauts in the Earth-orbiting Inspiration4 mission three years ago. The other three crew members — Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon — will be heading to space for the first time. All four are currently in quarantine at the Kennedy Space Center.
Isaacman said in a social media post on Wednesday that their daily routine “includes running around LC-39A — where so many historic missions launched.” The route is around 1.7 miles long and Isaacman added that they “try and bang out several laps” during each run.
With the mission delayed, they’ll likely be running a few more laps than originally planned, but a spot of exercise will be a good way of dealing with all of the excitement that they must be feeling ahead of launch.
Addressing the challenges of the upcoming voyage, Isaacman told CNN recently: “Sure, there is more risk in a development program than going to and from the International Space Station — but not a lot more risk … and some (risks) are just frankly unavoidable.”
Tech Reader has all the information you need to watch a live stream of the launch on Tuesday.
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