SpaceX’s 1st commercial spacewalk mission, Polaris Dawn, pushed by a day due to helium leak | Technology News
A few months ago, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX introduced its latest innovation – Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suits that allow astronauts to spacewalk at ~700 km above Earth. The private space tech company has now confirmed that it is all set to launch the Polaris Dawn flight, featuring billionaire crew members, making it the first commercial spacewalk mission in the world.
The mission was supposed to commence on August 27 at 3:38 a.m. EDT (1:08 PM IST) from Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida but has been postponed by at least 24 hours due to a technical issue that led to a “ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical.”
Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical. Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission to low-Earth orbit.
Next launch opportunity is no earlier than Wednesday, August 28 →…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 27, 2024
Musk took to his X account to claim it to be the first spacewalk by a commercial company and the furthest from Earth anyone has travelled ever.
Preparing for historic first commercial spacewalk and being the furthest from Earth of any humans in over half a century!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2024
The Polaris Dawn flight, the first civilian spacewalk mission, includes four crew members including Jared Isaacman, a billionaire who was also a part of SpaceX’s first commercial space travel mission on Crew Dragon back in 2021.
With the new EVA suits, space travellers including Isaacman along with the crew trainer Sarah Gillis will spend at least 15 minutes outside the Crew Dragon, while F-16 pilot Kidd Poteet and Anna Menon, a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission director, will remain inside the pod.
The objectives of this mission include “the first-ever extravehicular activity (EVA) by commercial astronauts wearing SpaceX-developed EVA suits,” and to “Conduct 36 research studies and experiments from 31 partner institutions designed to advance both human health on Earth and during long-duration spaceflight, and test Starlink laser-based communications in space.”
This comes just a few days after Boeing’s Starliner crew test mission, which also suffered from a helium leak and thruster failure, which has made NASA to use SpaceX’s dragon capsule instead of Starliner to bring Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore back to Earth in February 2025.
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