Elon Musk’s company can also make the ship reach the highest altitude in more than 50 years, three times the distance of the International Space Station.
The launch of Polaris was scheduled for this morning, at 3:38 a.m. local time (9:38 a.m. in the peninsula) but was finally delayed until 5:23 a.m. in Florida in the United States (11:23 a.m. in Spain) due to “weather conditions.” “adverse weather conditions,” as the company reports in X.
The mission launched from Florida aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule and is scheduled to perform the first privately-led spacewalk this week, with a planned duration of two and a half hours. The ship is commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, along with former U.S. Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, who will serve as flight specialist and flight surgeon, respectively. Neither is a member of a space agency.
The company said it has several launch opportunities on the peninsula this Tuesday until 1 p.m., as well as Wednesday in the same time slot. SpaceX said it continues to take into account weather conditions at potential sites chosen for the Dragon rocket’s landing after its mission.
The Polaris Dawn crew is expected to spend five days in space. They will travel aboard a Dragon capsule, launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, both manufactured by SpaceX, which will begin traveling alone about 12 minutes after liftoff and will maintain an elliptical trajectory throughout its five-day flight.
On its first day of travel, Polaris Dawn will reach a maximum altitude above Earth of about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles), farther than any astronaut has traveled since NASA’s Apollo program ended in 1972 and about 960 kilometers (960 miles) above where the International Space Station (ISS) travels.
On its third day of travel, Polaris Dawn plans to conduct what will be the first private spacewalk, which will initially last about two hours and will be carried out alternately by Isaacman and Gillis, aided by 3.5-meter-long cables.
It is the first of three missions that billionaire Isaacman has purchased from SpaceX in 2022 for his Polaris program, for an amount neither party has disclosed.
