SpaceX said today, Tuesday, that it will delay the launch of the four-person Polaris Dawn mission by at least one day, due to a helium leak in ground equipment inside the Kennedy Space Center, just hours before the Crew Dragon vehicle will be launched. , according to… International media.
The company said in a post on the X platform: “It is now aiming to launch the spacecraft carried on a Falcon 9 rocket at 3:38 am local time (0738 GMT) a- tomorrow, Wednesday.”
The most important events of the five-day mission are expected to take place two days after launch, when the team will begin a 20-minute spacewalk 700 kilometers from Earth, in the first commercial spacewalk in history.
“Teams are thoroughly investigating the helium leak in ground equipment,” SpaceX said in its post “Falcon and Dragon are still well and the team is still ready for its mission, which will take several days in low Earth orbit.”
Until now, only astronauts on government missions have made spacewalks, most recently astronauts on the International Space Station, who regularly wear spacesuits to perform maintenance and other checks on the their station.
The United States made its first spacewalk in 1965 aboard the Gemini capsule.
