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SpaceX launched the Polaris Dawn mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Press Site on Tuesday morning, a mission into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts in which a four-person crew of civilians seeks to carry out the first commercial spacewalk.
The crew aboard a Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket were launched from pad 39A at 5:23 a.m., pushed back from the earlier scheduled liftoff time of 3:38 a.m. due to weather conditions.
The launch was live-streamed on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
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SpaceX launched the Polaris Dawn mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Press Site. (SpaceX)
The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster, after flying along a northeasterly trajectory, landed aboard a SpaceX drone ship out at sea about nine and a half minutes after liftoff. Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage a short time later.
The crew will spend five days in space before returning to Florida.
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The crew aboard a Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket were launched from pad 39A at 5:23 a.m. (SpaceX)
This comes after multiple problems prevented the Polaris Dawn crew’s attempts to launch in late August.
A problem with ground equipment at the launch site pushed the target date back by 24 hours, and weather conditions forced SpaceX to delay two more launch attempts.
Dragon has separated from Falcon 9’s second stage after launch early Tuesday morning. (SpaceX)
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A Falcon 9 had also malfunctioned during a routine satellite mission, leading federal regulators to briefly halt all Falcon 9 rockets from launching before SpaceX was given the green light on August 30.
“Liftoff of Polaris Dawn!” SpaceX wrote on X.
