SpaceX launches private crew for historic spacewalk mission

SpaceX successfully launched its Polaris Dawn mission early Tuesday, sending four private astronauts into space aboard a modified Crew Dragon capsule.

The mission, which aims to test new spacesuit designs and conduct the first private spacewalk, lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 5:23 a.m. EST.

The crew, consisting of a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees, reached orbit nine and a half minutes after launch. The Crew Dragon capsule will embark on an oval-shaped orbit, reaching altitudes as high as 1,400 km, the furthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program.

Delayed by weather and technical issues, including a helium leak and a regulatory grounding of the Falcon 9 rocket, the mission is now set to perform a 20-minute spacewalk on its third day at 700 km. This historic spacewalk will be conducted with SpaceX’s newly designed spacesuits, as the Crew Dragon capsule lacks an airlock like the ISS.