SpaceX says the company is standing down from the Falcon 9 launch of Polaris Dawn scheduled for early Wednesday due to unfavourable weather conditions in splashdown areas off the coast of Florida.
“SpaceX teams will continue to monitor weather for favourable launch and return conditions,” said the company on its website.
It comes after the launch of the four-person Polaris Dawn mission was also delayed on Tuesday because of a helium leak in ground equipment at the Kennedy Space Center, the company said hours before the scheduled liftoff of its Crew Dragon capsule.
The highlight of the mission is expected to come two days after launch, when the crew embarks on the first ever spacewalk by a private company. The launch will be carried by a Falcon 9 booster.
“Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission to low-Earth orbit,” the company said in a posting on X.
Only government astronauts have performed spacewalks to date, most recently by occupants of the International Space Station, who regularly don spacesuits to perform maintenance and other checks of their orbital home.
The first U.S. spacewalk was in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, and used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether. Polaris Dawn’s crew will also be testing SpaceX’s new slimline spacesuits during the spacewalk.
Only two of the four — billionaire Jared Isaacman, mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both senior engineers at the company — will leave the spacecraft.
Isaacman, the founder of electronic payment company Shift4, bankrolled the mission. He has declined to say how much he has spent, but it is estimated to be more than $100 million.