SpaceX has postponed the launch of its ambitious Polaris Dawn mission, an all-civilian orbital expedition that aims to achieve the first spacewalk by private citizens. The mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a four-hour window on Wednesday.
However, SpaceX announced the delay due to an “unfavorable weather forecast in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida,” as stated on the platform X. Isaacman further explained that because the spacecraft will not rendezvous with the International Space Station and has limited supplies on board, weather conditions for the splashdown are critical. “Conditions are not favorable tonight or tomorrow, so we’ll assess day by day,” he noted.
The launch may face additional delays following the explosion of the first-stage booster from a separate SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites. While the booster landing is a secondary consideration, its reusability is key to SpaceX’s business model. The explosion ended a three-year streak of successful first-stage landings. SpaceX has paused further Starlink launches while investigating the incident. Additionally, an earlier launch attempt for Polaris Dawn was aborted on Tuesday due to a helium leak in a line connected to the rocket tower.
The Polaris Dawn mission will see the SpaceX Dragon capsule, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, reach a peak altitude of 870 miles — the highest for any crewed mission since the Apollo era. The mission’s highlight will be the first-ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts, wearing newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.
The crew includes mission commander Isaacman, mission pilot Scott Poteet (a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel), mission specialist Sarah Gillis (a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX), and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon (also a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX). The team has undergone over two years of rigorous training, including simulator sessions, skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and climbing an Ecuadorian volcano.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman, founder of Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX. Although Isaacman has not disclosed his total investment in the project, reports suggest he spent around $200 million on the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, the first all-civilian orbital mission.
On the first day of Polaris Dawn, the mission will reach its highest altitude, briefly entering the Van Allen radiation belt, a zone of high-energy charged particles that pose health risks to humans over extended periods.
