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Update: August 28, 2024 10:10 First
Florida [US]Aug 28 (ANI): The launch of the Elon Musk-led company's privately chartered spaceflight, which was supposed to launch four citizens into Earth orbit for a historic walk into space, the first of its kind, has been delayed again, SpaceX announced on Wednesday.
The Polaris Dawn mission, scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, was delayed to August 28 due to a helium leak. The mission is now delayed again because of bad weather forecast off the coast of Florida, where the crew capsule will land in the ocean at the end of the flight, the company said in a post on X.
“Due to forecast unfavorable weather at Dragon's splashdown areas off the coast of Florida, we are pushing back Falcon 9 launch opportunities for Polaris Dawn tonight and tomorrow,” SpaceX said.
The company said teams will continue to monitor the weather for favorable launch and return conditions.
“Our launch criteria are substantially constrained by predicted splashdown weather conditions,” billionaire entrepreneur and mission commander Jared Isaacman said in a post on X.
“With no rendezvous point at the ISS and limited life support consumables, we have to be absolutely sure of the re-entry weather before launch.
“Right now, conditions are not favorable tonight or tomorrow, so we will assess day by day. As Elon (Musk) mentioned, Polaris Dawn is a challenging mission with important objectives, so we will wait for the best opportunity to ensure success,” Isaacman said.
The launch was postponed until August 28 when engineers detected a leak in the launch pad's umbilical cord, which carries helium to the boosters to deliver propellant to the rocket's engines.
“Sometimes, the most difficult journeys require the most patience, and we're willing to wait for the right time,” Isaacman wrote on X.
Isaacman is commanding the mission along with his colleagues, former F-16 pilot Scott Poteat and two SpaceX engineers, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. They will ride into orbit inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which will enter Earth's Van Allen radiation belts.
The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled to last about 5 days after being launched into an oval-shaped orbit that extends to an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth, higher than any astronaut flight since the Apollo 17 moon program in 1972.
On the third day of their journey, crew members will descend from the spacecraft at an altitude of about 435 miles (700 km) above Earth, and spend 20 minutes in the vacuum of space.
The astronauts will wear and test a brand-new Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suit, which SpaceX says it designed and developed in just two and a half years.
One of the challenges the mission will face will be getting the cabin into a vacuum before opening the hatch, as the ship does not have an airlock.
'Polaris Dawn' is the first of three planned missions under the Polaris program, a human-spaceflight project funded and organized by Isaacman in collaboration with Elon Musk.
Incidentally, Isaacman funded and commanded the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, which was the first all-civilian commercial flight to orbit operated by SpaceX. (ANI)