A billionaire and his three crew members hope to make history as they prepare to get shot into space on a mission that is planned to include the first-ever civilian spacewalk. The Polaris Dawn team will launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, with a Falcon 9 rocket performing the lifting duties. Blast off is scheduled to take place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:38 a.
m. ET on Tuesday, August 27. Should SpaceX need to postpone the launch, the company said on its website there are two backup times that morning, one at 5:23 a.
m. and the other at 7:09 a.m.
If a launch during those times is impossible, the launch could take place during the following morning. The launch will be livestreamed starting 3.5 hours before liftoff on the SpaceX website , and via X .
If Polaris Dawn proceeds as planned, the Crew Dragon capsule is expected to reach a maximum orbit of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth. This would not only mark the highest altitude a Dragon capsule has reached but also set a new record for the highest Earth orbit apogee. The current record, held by the 1966 Gemini XI mission , is 853 miles (1,373 kilometers).
While the Apollo missions traveled much farther to reach the Moon, they did not achieve such high altitudes while orbiting Earth. The crew plans to stay in orbit for up to five days, during which they will conduct over 30 research studies and experiments. These include gathering data on radiation conditions in space and conducting several experiments related t.