SpaceX Launches Polaris Dawn Crew To Space With Aim Of First-Ever Private Spacewalk

Elon Musk‘s spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX on Tuesday successfully launched the all-civilian Polaris Dawn crew composed of four, including Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, to low-Earth orbit to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk.

What Happened: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the mission to space from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at around 5:23 a.m. ET.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and the all-civilian Polaris Crew composed of four including its mission commander Isaacman, Kidd Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon will spend up to five days in orbit. While Isaacman and Poteet worked together at Shift4, Gillis and Menon are SpaceX engineers.

The Polaris Dawn mission was initially slated to launch in late August but has been postponed multiple times since owing to a helium leak in ground equipment on the launchpad and unfavorable weather forecast. SpaceX is prioritizing crew safety given the increased risk associated with the mission, Musk previously said about the delays.

Why It Matters: Polaris Dawn is the first of up to three human spaceflight missions planned under the Polaris program founded by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

The key objective of the mission is to conduct a spacewalk nearly 435 miles above the Earth donning SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity spacesuits and marking the first-ever spacewalk by a commercial company.

While space agency NASA routinely conducts extravehicular activities, no private player has attempted it before, making this a landmark mission for SpaceX and commercial spaceflight companies. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday and will last about 20 minutes.

The crew will also conduct several research and science experiments on the mission.

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Photo courtesy: Polaris Dawn