SpaceX is targeting Monday, August 26, for the launch of the all-civilian Polaris Dawn mission that will take a Crew Dragon spacecraft to its highest orbit and also feature the first commercial spacewalk.
The Elon Musk-led company will live-stream the launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Read on for full details on how to watch.
The mission will be led by billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, the CEO of payment processing firm Shift4 and an accomplished pilot. Isaacman has traveled to space once before, on the SpaceX-operated Inspiration4 mission in 2021. The businessman funded that mission and is also funding the Polaris Dawn endeavor.
Flying alongside Isaacman will be three other non-professional astronauts, namely Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX who oversees the company’s astronaut training program; and Anna Menon, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, responsible for managing the development of crew operations and who also serves in mission control.
During the five-day mission, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will reach its highest-ever orbit, about 435 miles (700 kilometers) above Earth and some 185 miles (298 kilometers) above the International Space Station, which is where the spacecraft usually heads to as part of NASA’s crew rotation missions.
During the two-hour spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will test a newly designed spacesuit to confirm that it moves and functions as expected in the vacuum of space.
“The development of this suit and the execution of the [spacewalk] will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions,” SpaceX said on the Polaris Dawn website.
The crew will also carry out a number of other science and technology-based tests while in orbit.
How to watch
SpaceX is targeting 3:38 a.m. ET (12:38 a.m. PT) on Monday, August 26, for the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch window will last for four hours.
You can watch the Falcon 9 rocket carry the crew to space via SpaceX’s feed on X (formerly Twitter).
Cameras will capture the early stages of the mission from the ground, from the exterior of the rocket, and also from inside the Crew Dragon capsule.
If there are any changes to the schedule, we’ll be sure to update here just as soon as we can. For the very latest information, check Polaris Dawn’s X account.
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