A SpaceX rocket carrying a billionaire, a pilot and two company employees on the first private spacewalk in history is expected to lift off from Florida on Wednesday, after a delay due to a leak.
The launch of the Polaris Dawn mission was delayed by 24 hours after a “helium leak” was discovered Monday in the link that powers the rocket. Helium, a non-flammable gas, is often used in propulsion systems.
The Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon crew capsule, is expected to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (USA) at 03:38 (08:38 in Lisbon) on Wednesday.
All systems are ready to launch tomorrow. [quarta-feira]“SpaceX announced on social network X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
The commander of this five-day mission is American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has worked with Elon Musk's SpaceX for several years.
One of the goals of the flight is to test SpaceX's first futuristic white spacesuits.
The spacecraft will also travel to an altitude of 1,400 kilometers, the farthest the crew has traveled since the Apollo lunar missions.
This is the first time SpaceX employees have gone to space: Sarah Gillis is in charge of astronaut training, and Anna Menon worked at NASA before joining SpaceX.
The fourth person on board the plane was pilot Scott Poteet, a former member of the United States Air Force and a close friend of Jared Isaacman.
The four adventurers underwent intensive training for more than two years: about 2,000 hours in a simulator, sessions in a “centrifuge” (rapid spinning), diving, skydiving, and survival training in Ecuador.
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