SpaceX: Billionaire to attempt first-ever private spacewalk
The moment Polaris Dawn set off as the mission looks to make history
The first-ever privately funded spacewalk, which aims to venture further than anyone since NASA's Apollo mission, is set to take place on Thursday.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew began preparing for the endeavour soon after blasting into orbit on Tuesday.
As part of the company's Polaris Dawn mission, Isaacman and a SpaceX engineer will take turns emerging from their capsule hundreds of miles above Earth, sticking close to the hatch. Two other crew members will remain strapped in their seats.
The crew lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday.
The Falcon 9 rocket reached speeds of up to 17,000 mph, allowing the capsule to enter Earth's orbit about ten minutes later.
Isaacman, founder of Shift4, co-funded the space flight with SpaceX, which included designing and testing new spacesuits to assess their performance in space.
The five-day mission will take the crew into an oval-shaped orbit, reaching up to 870 miles (1,400 kilometres) from Earth, breaking a 1966 altitude record set by NASA’s Project Gemini.
Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured further.
The plan is to spend ten hours at the 870-mile height - filled with extreme radiation and riddled with debris - before reducing the oval-shaped orbit by half.
Even at this lower height, the orbit would eclipse the space station and even the Hubble Space Telescope, the highest shuttle astronauts flew.
Polaris Dawn is part of three missions with SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, aimed at testing new technologies that will see humans live and work on other planets.
Joining Isaacman on Polaris Dawn are engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former US Air Force pilot and longtime friend of Isaacman, completes the crew.
Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.
Both Issacman and Gills will take turns going outside the hatch into the vacuum of space to test their spacesuits.
“We’re sending you hugs from the ground,” Launch Director Frank Messina radioed after the crew reached orbit. “May you make history and come home safely.”
Isaacman replied: “We wouldn’t be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back at SpaceX and everyone else cheering us on.”
What are the objectives for the space flight?
If successful, this spacewalk will be the first ever carried out by civilians.
The crew will then focus on about 40 scientific experiments before the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule returns to Earth.
Re-entry is said to be challenging, as the spacecraft's exterior will face temperatures exceeding 1,649 degrees Celsius.
Like SpaceX’s previous astronaut flights, this one will end with a splashdown off the Florida coast.
Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...