A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon Resilience capsule, carrying the crew of the Polaris Dawn Mission.
Chandan Khanna | Afp | Getty Images
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission launched Tuesday from Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon “Resilience” capsule into orbit.
This is the first of three missions that billionaire and Shift4 founder Jared Isaacman has purchased from SpaceX in 2022 for the human spaceflight effort known as the Polaris Program.
The multi-day trip does not lead to a destination like the International Space Station, but rather a free-flying mission to track the orbit the crew hopes to take away from Earth.
As the centerpiece of the mission, the crew will attempt to perform SpaceX’s first spacewalk. Extravehicular activity, or EVA, has become a routine part of government astronaut missions but no private venture has attempted an EVA before. The EVA is expected to last two hours from start to finish.
In addition to the spacewalk, Polaris Dawn plans to conduct about 40 scientific and research experiments during the mission.
The launch has been delayed several times over the past few weeks due to unfavorable weather conditions and a helium leak.
Isaacman commanded the mission, leading a crew of four that included the first two SpaceX employees, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, into space. This is Isaacman’s second time in orbit, having led the historic Inspiration4 flight in 2021.
Polaris Dawn represents SpaceX’s 14th crewed mission to date, and its fifth private spaceflight.