by Gerry Doyle
August 27 (Reuters) ,The launch of SpaceX's four-person Polaris Dawn mission will be delayed by at least a day because of a helium leak in ground equipment at the Kennedy Space Center, the company said Tuesday, just hours before the scheduled launch of its Crew Dragon capsule.
The highlight of the five-day mission is expected to come two days after launch, when the crew will make a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700 km) above Earth, the first private spacewalk in history.
The company said in a post on X that it now aims to launch the spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 booster at 3:38 a.m. (0738 GMT) on Wednesday.
“Teams are closely monitoring the ground-side helium leak,” Tuesday's post said. “Falcon and Dragon are healthy and the crew is ready for their multi-day mission in low Earth orbit.”
To date, only government astronauts have conducted spacewalks, most recently by International Space Station crews, who routinely wear spacesuits to perform maintenance and other checks on their orbital home.
America's first spacewalk was conducted in 1965 in a Gemini capsule, and used a procedure similar to that planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and an astronaut in a spacesuit was lowered using a rope.
The Polaris Dawn crew will test SpaceX's new, slimline spacesuits during the flight.
Only two of the four — billionaire Jared Isaacman, mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, senior engineers at the company — will exit the spacecraft.
Isaacman, founder of electronic payments company Shift4, funded the mission; he declined to say how much he spent, but estimates put it at more than $100 million.
Reporting: Gerry Doyle; Editing: Clarence Fernandez