Description
SpaceX launched a rocket with a four person crew from Cape Canaveral, Florida Tuesday morning.
The mission was originally scheduled to launch August 27, but has encountered delays – first for a helium leak and then for bad weather.
It will feature a crew of four: the mission's commander, Jared Isaacman; Scott Poteet, a 20-year Air Force veteran pilot; and SpaceX employees Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. Launching on a Falcon 9 rocket, they will travel in a SpaceX Dragon capsule named Resilience.
Polaris Dawn's time in space will be spent testing communications between the craft and Earth via Starlink satellites and completing almost 40 experiments. Many of these experiments will study how the human body reacts in low-gravity environments and measure the radiation the capsule receives.
But Polaris Dawn's biggest task will be the first private spacewalk. The spacewalk will test out SpaceX's new extravehicular activity, or EVA, suits and learn about how they function in the low-gravity environment of space.