Florida, August 27 :
The launch of the historic 'Polaris Dawn' mission, which will include the first spacewalk conducted by a civilian crew, has been rescheduled to Wednesday by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
The business announced on August 26 that the launch of the capsule carrying four civilian astronauts, which was supposed to take place early August 27 morning from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, has been postponed by at least 24 hours due to a helium leak.
A helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical is being investigated by teams on the ground. The crew is fully prepared for the multi-day voyage to low Earth orbit, and both Falcon and Dragon are in good health. The next launch window will open no early than Wednesday, August 28," SpaceX announced via Twitter.
Jared Isaacman, a self-made billionaire, is spearheading a human spaceflight initiative called the Polaris Program, the first of three planned trips. Up until now, only astronauts from the government have attempted spacewalks, but that changes in this mission.
Polaris Dawn will be piloted by Issacman with the help of three other crew members: Sarah Gillis, an engineer from SpaceX, and Scott "Kidd" Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel and mission specialist. The mission is scheduled to continue for around five days after it is launched into an oval-shaped orbit that reaches a maximum distance of 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Earth.
Anna Menon's husband, Anil, is a surgeon and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force. He was SpaceX's first flight surgeon and helped send humans into orbit on the Demo-2 mission, so there's a tie to India in their marriage. The son of Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, Anil Menon was born and brought up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is now a trainee astronaut at NASA.
A tremendous deal of effort has been poured into this historic mission by a remarkable crew," Musk wrote on X after the postponement. To make sure we have exhausted all possible options for enhancing crew safety, we are inspecting everything three times over.
"We are grateful to all our friends, family, and supporters who have come out to @NASAKennedy for the launch," Issacman wrote on X. We guarantee an impressive performance in the near future, since the world's top aerospace engineers are diligently addressing the matter.
Isaacman had already paid for his own orbital mission in 2021. The 'Inspiration4' manned spacecraft, run by SpaceX, was carrying him.
Sharing her admiration for SpaceX's "diligence and commitment to not fly until we are ready," Anna Menon took to social media to express her thoughts. Maybe tomorrow we'll have better luck!
On the third day of the mission, once the Polaris Dawn is launched, Isaacman and Gillis will do a spacewalk.
As part of Polaris Dawn, humans will set a new record for the furthest distance from Earth that a crewed mission since Apollo 17 in 1972 has attempted to reach—a maximum of 1,400 kilometers—marking a major milestone in human spaceflight.
Astronauts will be sporting the latest Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits, which were reportedly created in a mere 2.5 years by SpaceX.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is constructing a vehicle called Starship to assist humans in settling on the moon and Mars. The first crewed voyage of Starship will occur during the third Polaris trip.
Transportation of NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station has been carried out by SpaceX since 2020.
