The Polaris Program, funded by billionaire and mission commander Jared Isaacman, teamed up with SpaceX for a historic launch Tuesday morning.Now, four civilian astronauts are in orbit and making their way to record-breaking heights aboard the Polaris Dawn mission.For his second trip to space, Isaacman had big aspirations for the Polaris Dawn mission, where a four-person crew is expected to conduct experiments that contribute to long-duration spaceflights and execute the first-ever commercial spacewalk.Considered one of the riskiest parts of spaceflight, spacewalks have been the sole realm of professional astronauts since the former Soviet Union popped open the hatch in 1965, closely followed by the U.S. Today, they are routinely done at the International Space Station.After a series of delays, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying the civilian astronauts in a Crew Dragon capsule launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:23 a.m. on Tuesday.The launch was set to take off at 3:38 a.m., but unfavorable weather at the launch site has pushed the time back. The original Polaris Dawn launch was scheduled to launch Aug. 26 but was pushed back multiple times. Citing a helium leak and unfavorable recovery weather, the flight was indefinitely on hold until SpaceX announced they would try to launch again on Sept. 10. The crew is traveling to an orbital altitude more than three times higher than the International Space Station, the highest that humans have reached since the final Apollo moon mission in 1972.This is the first Polaris mission in a series of three flights, the final of which will be aboard Starship, SpaceX’s largest rocket still under development. The crew — which also consists of mission pilot Scott Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon — is expected to conduct 36 studies related to human health during long-duration spaceflights and test the new extravehicular activity suits developed by SpaceX.The civilian astronauts are also expected to test Starlink laser-based communications in space.The historic spacewalk is set to take place on the third day of the mission. In total, the mission is expected to take five days.“We’re sending you hugs from the ground,” Launch Control radioed after the crew reached orbit. “May you make history and come home safely.”Isaacman replied: “We wouldn’t be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back at SpaceX.”At a preflight news conference, Isaacman — CEO and founder of the credit card processing company Shift4 — refused to say how much he invested in the flight. “Not a chance,” he said.SpaceX teamed up with Isaacman to pay for spacesuit development and associated costs, said William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who once headed space mission operations for NASA.“We’re really starting to push the frontiers with the private sector,” Gerstenmaier said.It’s the first of three trips that Isaacman bought from Elon Musk 2 1/2 years ago, soon after returning from his first private SpaceX spaceflight in 2021. Isaacman bankrolled that tourist ride for an undisclosed sum, taking along contest winners and a childhood cancer survivor. The trip raised hundreds of millions for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.The Associated Press contributed to this report

Source