Civilians Head to Space to Walk, Make History

After numerous delays, SpaceX has launched one of its riskiest missions yet, sending four civilians into Earth's Van Allen radiation belt and out on what could be the first commercial spacewalk. The roughly five-day mission, known as Polaris Dawn, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 5:23am ET Tuesday in an event livestreamed on X. About 20 minutes later, SpaceX announced the Crew Dragon capsule carrying the first SpaceX employees into space had separated from the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage. The crew will conduct dozens of experiments over Tuesday and Wednesday while preparing for a spacewalk scheduled for Thursday, the aerospace company said, per CNN.

The mission is partly funded by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payment processing company Shift4, who previously funded and participated in the first all-civilian SpaceX mission to orbit in 2021, per NBC News. He's on board along with his close friend and former US Air Force pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet and SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. All four will attempt to reach "the highest any human has flown since NASA's Apollo program" at some 870 miles above Earth, CNN reports. "That's more than three times higher than the International Space Station," per NBC, and could mark the farthest any woman has reached in space.

On day 3, about 435 miles above Earth, the crew will attempt the first spacewalk by an all-civilian crew. Only Isaacman and Gillis will exit the spacecraft, but all four astronauts will wear and test the new extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuit, suited for both intravehicular and extravehicular activities, per the BBC. "Because the spacecraft does not have a pressurized airlock, the entire capsule will be depressurized and exposed to vacuum conditions," per NBC. The astronauts will also venture through the inner regions of the Van Allen radiation belt, helping experts to study the effects of space radiation. If all goes well, Dragon will return to Earth, splashing down off the coast of Florida, on the mission's sixth day. (More SpaceX stories.)