Polaris space mission will provide the first private space walk

Polaris Dawn is on the launchpad and ready for takeoff as soon as the weather cooperates.

Once in space, four civilian astronauts aboard a SpaceX capsule will be going where no humans have gone in more than a half-century.

They will venture as high as 870 miles into the Van Allen radiation belts. No humans have done that since Apollo 17 in 1972. There they will study the effects of radiation on the human body.

Then the capsule will drop to about 470 miles above earth. Two of the astronauts will head outside on the first-ever commercial spacewalk, testing brand new spacesuits.

"We are all really confident that some iteration of it is going to be worn by somebody walking on Mars some day. And that just makes it even more of a privilege to be part of it," said Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn commander.

The mission has been delayed for a couple of years by technical problems and design issues.

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On board are mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, who are both engineers for SpaceX.

"Polaris is all about accelerating the technology development," said Gillis.

Pilot Scott Poteet is a former Air Force pilot who once flew with the Thunderbirds. The mission is led by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who dropped out of high school to start his first business.

Sian Proctor went to space with Isaacman on another all-civilian mission in 2021.

"It's about testing new equipment, new hardware, new ideas of ways of doing things and inspiring along the way. And that to me is why we go," said Proctor.

The flight is set to last five days before returning to earth and is the first of three planned Polaris missions.