2024-09-13 13:44:30
It was supposed to start in the morning, but then the spacewalk of the “Polaris Dawn” space mission was moved to midday. Now the spacewalk has been postponed again.
The risky spacewalk during the private mission “Polaris Dawn” has been postponed for the second time. The space company SpaceX did not give a reason. There was a lot of speculation about this on social networks.
The new expected launch time is around 3:30 p.m. Central European Time, according to the live broadcast of the spacewalk. The spacewalk was originally scheduled for 8:23 a.m. this morning. Then it was announced that the spacewalk would begin at around 12 p.m.
The spacewalk phase is the riskiest period of the entire mission, as former astronaut Ulrich Walter explained. Unlike missions on the ISS space station, amateur astronauts Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis do not float freely in space during their 20-minute excursions, but are attached to a type of ladder via foot straps the entire time.
Since the Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, the entire spacecraft will be exposed to the vacuum of space as soon as the door is opened. Two of the passengers will stay on board at a time, while the other two leave the capsule. During the spacewalk, the astronauts will test spacesuits developed by SpaceX.
Billionaire entrepreneur Isaacman is leading the mission, which will last up to five days, in coordination with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who remained on the ground. Isaacman and SpaceX employee Gillis were joined by former jet pilot Kidd Poteet and SpaceX employee Anna Menon on board the “Crew Dragon” spacecraft, which was launched into space with a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral spaceport on the east coast of Florida.
Isaacman, 41, had already taken part in SpaceX’s first space tourism flight in 2021. The aircraft and space fan chartered a rocket and a Dragon space capsule from SpaceX and stayed in Earth orbit for three days with three companions.
The quartet completed intensive training for the Polaris Dawn mission, including 2,000 hours in a flight simulator, sessions in a centrifuge, diving, parachute jumps and a climb up the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador.