The Polaris Dawn crew were finally able to embark early Tuesday on the thrice-delayed spaceflight , where by Thursday they should attempt to become the first nongovernment astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. In the predawn hours, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew boarded a SpaceX Dragon capsule perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off at 5:23 a.m. EDT from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The spacecraft will ascend to 870 miles above Earth's surface before descending to a cruising orbit about 435 miles above Earth.
That initial altitude is higher than any human has traveled since NASA’s Apollo lunar program came to an end in the 1970s and is more than three times higher than the International Space Station . The ascent will also take the crew through the treacherous inner regions of Earth's Van Allen radiation belts , which astronauts will have to traverse on future missions to the moon and Mars.
Following Tuesday's launch, the Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage booster was able to detach from the spacecraft within 10 minutes, guide itself back to Earth and land as planned aboard a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. By 5:40 a.m., the Dragon spacecraft broke away from the Falcon 9's upper stage and began using its own thrusters to power on, SpaceX said on social media site X .
SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Falcon 9 rocket blasts off early Tuesday from Launch Complex 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule, carrying the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, heads to orbit. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Years in the making , the launch was most recently scrubbed due to poor weather conditions forecasted for the crew's return to Earth. Because the Dragon is not docking at the International Space Station, its crew will be entirely reliant on the oxygen and supplies they have stored on the spacecraft, which is only enough for about a week, Isaacman previously explained on social media site X.
For that reason, SpaceX had been waiting for the past several days for weather conditions to improve off the Florida coast, where the crew will make a splashdown landing on the sixth day of their mission.
On the third day of the mission, the crew will also attempt to become the first-ever private citizens to conduct a spacewalk, opening the Dragon's hatch to expose themselves to the vacuum of space. The daring maneuver is one only ever conducted by government astronauts, and most commonly takes place of spacecraft with airlocks.
Because the Dragon does not have an airlock, the entire spacecraft will have to be depressurized when the hatch is opened, exposing the entire crew to the vacuum of space. All four astronauts will be wearing extravehicular activity (EVA) suits designed by SpaceX to receive oxygen through tethers, which they will test on behalf of the company.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
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