We have blast off! Four astronauts go away Earth for personal spacewalk
Following a series of delays due to bad weather, the historic Polaris Dawn has finally blasted off to space.
SpaceX‘s Crew Dragon capsule – carrying four non-professional astronauts – launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 05:25 local time (10:25 BST).
The four person team will fly up to 870 miles away from Earth aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
This will be the furthest from Earth that any human has travelled since the Apollo moon missions and will carry the crew into Earth’s radioactive Van Allen Belt.
The five-day mission aims to carry out the first-ever spacewalk by private citizens – so those who don’t work for national space agencies such as NASA.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule, carrying the crew of the Polaris Dawn Mission, lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 10, 2024
During their flight, Mr Isaacman and the rest of the crew will reach an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometres) – higher than any crewed mission in more than half a century, since the Apollo era. Pictured, the launch on Tuesday
SpaceX confirmed the successful launch on X (Twitter) with a stunning photo and the caption: ‘Liftoff of Polaris Dawn!’
Polaris Dawn is a ‘first-of-its-kind’ private astronaut mission to space featuring four US engineers and pilots – Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Isaacman is a billionaire entrepreneur and commander of Inspiration4, a private spaceflight using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience in September 2021.
For Polaris Dawn, Isaacman and his crew will spend up to five days in orbit, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and also attempting to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown.
They will also conduct a spacewalk and support scientific research designed to advance ‘understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights’.
SpaceX confirmed the successful launch on X (Twitter) with a stunning photo and the caption: ‘Liftoff of Polaris Dawn!’
The Polaris Dawn crew – Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis. Isaacman, a billionaire, was the commander of Inspiration4, a private spaceflight using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience, launched in September 2021
It is flying a team of four engineers and pilots aboard the Crew Dragon, a reusable aircraft designed by the firm Elon Musk found in 2002
More to follow
