SpaceX delays historic Polaris Dawn launch due to technical issue

SpaceX has announced that it has delayed the historic launch of an all-civilian crew's orbital mission, which would have marked the first spacewalk by private individuals.

The Polaris Dawn mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was set to lift off early Tuesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, but is now targeting early Wednesday after a late technical hitch, News.Az reports citing foreign media.

"Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical," Elon Musk's company wrote on X. Umbilicals connect a tower with a rocket, while helium is a non-flammable gas often used to pressurize fuel lines.

Riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to reach a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) -- higher than any crewed mission in over half a century, since the Apollo era.

Mission commander Isaacman will guide his four-member team through the mission's centerpiece: the first-ever commercial spacewalk, equipped with sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.

Rounding out the team are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX; and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, also a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX.

The quartet underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the landmark mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and summiting an Ecuadoran volcano.

Polaris Dawn is set to be the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman, the founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX.

News.Az