Elon Musk‘s SpaceX on Monday said that it is postponing the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission to Wednesday after identifying a helium leak.
What Happened: SpaceX was originally slated to launch the mission on Tuesday but is now looking to launch the mission at 3:38 a.m. ET on Wednesday from Florida.
The postponement is for the company to check out a helium leak identified on Monday. Both the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft for the mission remain healthy, SpaceX said.
“Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical,” the company said on Monday evening.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also took to X and said that the company is “triple-checking” everything to make sure there is nothing more it can do to improve crew safety.
Why It Matters: Musk had warned of the possibility of postponing the mission early on Monday, citing the increased risk associated with the mission.
"Crew safety is absolutely paramount and this mission carries more risk than usual, as it will be the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since Apollo and the first commercial spacewalk! If any concerns arise, the launch will be postponed until those concerns are addressed," Musk said.
Polaris Dawn is the first of up to three human spaceflight missions planned under the Polaris program founded by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.
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 work together at Shift4, Gillis and Menon are both SpaceX engineers.
The key objective of the mission is to conduct a spacewalk nearly 435 miles above the Earth — 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.
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Photo courtesy: Polaris Dawn
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