SpaceX’s manned mission was delayed after a leak of ground equipment by Reuters

By Gerry Doyle

(Reuters) – The launch of SpaceX’s (NYSE: ) four-person Polaris mission will be delayed by at least a day due to a helium leak in ground equipment at the Kennedy Space Center, the company said on Tuesday, hours before liftoff scheduled. of his Crew Dragon capsule.

The climax of the five-day mission is expected to come two days after launch, when the crew embarks on a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700 km) from Earth, the first such private spacewalk in history .

The company now aims to launch the spacecraft, carried by a Falcon 9 booster, at 3:38 am (0738 GMT) on Wednesday, it said in a post on X.

“Teams are looking more closely at a helium leak on the ground,” he added in Tuesday’s post. “Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission in low Earth orbit.”

To date, only government astronauts have conducted spacewalks, most recently by the occupants of the International Space Station, who regularly don spacesuits to perform maintenance and other checks on their orbital home.

The first US spacewalk took place in 1965 aboard a Gemini capsule and used a procedure similar to that planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and an astronaut in a spacesuit ventured out with a .

Polaris Dawn’s crew will test SpaceX’s new thin 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, founder of electronic payments company Shift4, funded the mission; he declined to say how much he spent, but it is estimated at more than $100 million.