SpaceX delays launch of daring Polaris Dawn excursion into Earth’s radiation belts

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — SpaceX has once again delayed the kickoff of its latest mission: a bold and risky trek into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts by a four-person crew of civilians who will also aim to conduct the first commercial spacewalk.

The mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, was set to take off as soon as 3:38 a.m. ET Wednesday — but the company opted to delay takeoff because of unfavorable weather conditions for the crew’s return to Earth. This latest delay comes after a planned Tuesday morning launch attempt from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida was waived off because of issues with ground equipment at the launchpad.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments platform Shift4 who is both funding this mission alongside SpaceX and part of the crew, said on social media Wednesday night that the ground system issues were resolved, and the weather for launch looked great.

However, when the crew returns, they’ll also need calm waters and skies as they splash down in the ocean. And the current forecast for the five-day mission prompted SpaceX to forgo launch attempts on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida, we are now standing down from tonight and tomorrow’s Falcon 9 launch opportunities of Polaris Dawn. Teams will continue to monitor weather for favorable launch and return conditions,” SpaceX posted on X.

In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Isaacman said that finding optimal weather for returning back to Earth after their brief trip to orbit is crucial.

“We’ve got five, six days — maybe you can stretch it — of life support on the vehicle,” Isaacman said. “So you have to be really sure about where you have fault tolerance and redundancy in your systems. You’ve got to be really sure about the weather (for the splashdown return to Earth).”

The four-person crew has been in quarantine awaiting their launch.

Isaacman posted on X Tueday night that Polaris Dawn’s expected takeoff time depends heavily on the weather forecast, and, “As of now, conditions are not favorable tonight or tomorrow, so we’ll assess day by day.”

Once a new launch date is in place, SpaceX is planning to stream the event live on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased in 2022.

The crew will ride to orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket, strapped inside an igloo-shaped SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which measures about 13 feet (4 meters) across.

First commercial spacewalk attempt

Polaris Dawn is the brainchild of SpaceX and Isaacman, who made his first foray into spaceflight with the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.

This flight, however, is not a joyride.

Isaacman and his crewmates — including close friend and former United States Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet as well as SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis — hope to rack up several superlatives on this five-day mission.

First, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule aims to carry the crew to record-setting heights for a regular orbit around Earth, surpassing a milestone set by NASA’s 1966 Gemini 11 mission, which reached 853 miles (1,373 kilometers). If successful, Polaris Dawn would beat that height by about 20 miles (32 kilometers).

The Polaris Dawn spaceflight is also set to be the farthest any human has flown since NASA’s Apollo missions (1968-1972) — which carried astronauts a quarter million miles to the moon rather than stopping in Earth’s orbit.

Polaris Dawn may also mark the farthest any woman has ever gone into space.

To kick off day three of its mission, the civilian crew, orbiting at a lower altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers) above Earth, will attempt a history-making spacewalk.

The endeavor will be hazardous, exposing all four crew members and the Crew Dragon’s interior to the vacuum of space. Such a situation may make it difficult to relock the hatch on Crew Dragon due to differences in pressure. And exposure to the vacuum may cause toxins to be released from hardware when the cabin is repressurized, though SpaceX says it has taken steps to prevent this.

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