Billionaire astronaut set for space walk finally blasts off on SpaceX rocket

A SpaceX capsule flown by a crew that will take the first walk in space by private citizens finally blasted off early Tuesday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Jared Isaacman, a fintech billionaire serving as commander of the Polaris Dawn mission, and three other crew members lifted off in the Hawthorne company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. They will reach the highest orbit above the Earth since the Apollo program during their five-day mission.

The flight had been scheduled to launch Aug. 26 but was initially delayed by a leak in a launch-pad hose that pumps helium into the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that sent the Crew Dragon into orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration also temporarily grounded the Falcon 9 fleet after one of its reusable boosters fell over and burned while landing on an offshore barge in the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfavorable long-range weather forecasts for the capsule’s splashdown off the Florida coast prompted additional delays. The Crew Dragon was developed to service the International Space Station, but the crew will not dock with the lab and is only carrying limited supplies.

Isaacman and crew member Sarah Gillis, an employee of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are expected to carry out the first commercial space walk during the third day of the mission. They will be testing a new generation of form-fitting space suits that SpaceX says will be necessary to colonize the moon and Mars. The Extravehicular Activity suits have been in development for several years.

Polaris Dawn is the first flight of the Polaris Program, a private space program funded by Isaacman, a 41-year-old American entrepreneur who founded Shift4 Payments, a Pennsylvania company that processes payments for multiple industries. Forbes currently estimates Isaacman to be worth $1.9 billion.

The pilot is Scott “Kidd” Poteet, 50, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. The fourth crew member, Anna Menon, also is a SpaceX employeee. This is the first spaceflight for all but Isaacson, who funded and was the commander of Inspiration4, the first all-civilian space mission in September 2021.