SpaceX announced the postponement of the launch of the Polaris Dawn private mission scheduled for August 28. This was due to unfavorable weather conditions.
Due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida, we are now standing down from tonight and tomorrow’s Falcon 9 launch opportunities of Polaris Dawn. Teams will continue to monitor weather for favorable launch and return conditions
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 28, 2024
The Polaris Dawn mission is funded by American billionaire Jared Isaacman. He has already made a space flight on the Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2021. His new mission will include the first-ever private spacewalk. It will be attended by Isaacman himself, as well as specialist Sarah Gillis. New SpaceX spacesuits will be used in the operation.
Polaris Dawn is also planned to break the orbital altitude record for manned near-Earth missions. The spacecraft will move away from our planet at a distance of 1400 km. At apogee, Crew Dragon will cross sections of Earth’s inner radiation belt. Most of the mission’s experiments are in one way or another related to studying the effects of high-altitude spaceflight factors and increased radiation levels on the human body.
Polaris Dawn was originally scheduled for launch on August 27. But it had to be postponed for a day due to a helium leak. The next attempt took place on August 28. But this time, Crew Dragon also stayed on Earth. SpaceX had to interrupt the pre-launch countdown due to unfavorable weather forecast in the region of the mission splashdown off the coast of Florida (it will take place five days after the launch).
At the moment it is known that SpaceX will not launch Polaris Dawn on August 28 or 29. Thus, the nearest possible flight date is August 30. But so far the company hasn’t confirmed it yet. So it is possible that Polaris Dawn may go into space as early as September.
Previously, we answered the most common questions related to Starship.
