The SpaceX and Polaris Dawn teams have checked a number of important boxes before they are ready to launch the historic commercial mission.
Less than a week after arriving at Florida’s Space Coast, the four astronauts have done all the activities they will experience on launch day, including getting into their suits and climbing into the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft, which will be their home during the roughly five-day mission.
Following the activity known as a drysuit rehearsal, SpaceX cleared the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A in order to conduct a static firing test of the Falcon 9 rocket. The T-0 ignition occurred at 6:38 a.m. EDT (1038 UTC).
The engine firing took about 11 seconds in total. SpaceX engineers took the data collected from the process and will review it as they make final preparations for launch.
B1083, the Falcon 9 first-stage booster that powers the mission, will launch on its fourth trip to space when it lifts off no later than Tuesday morning. The vehicle previously launched the Crew-8 mission aboard the Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in March, as well as two Starlink flights.
SpaceX’s unmanned spaceship, which will be used to capture the booster rocket after its anticipated “zero-gravity” launch, launched from Port Canaveral on Saturday afternoon.
Polaris Dawn and SpaceX completed full training for launch day activities ahead of liftoff on Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/qz2RD5bnVM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2024
The Polaris Dawn mission will take the four crew members, Jared Isaacman, Scott “Kid” Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, further than humans have gone since Apollo 17 in 1972, and will see them perform the first commercial spacewalk.
This comes after more than two and a half years of development, testing and training at SpaceX and NASA facilities.
“SpaceX and the teams and crew, with their help, continue to push the boundaries of what it takes to go to the Moon and Mars. We are taking the responsibility we have been given to get the crew home safely,” said William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, during a pre-launch briefing. “Spaceflight is not easy. Our mission now is to launch Polaris safely, support their multi-day mission, and get them home to their families and friends.”
It was the second time SpaceX has launched a stationary rocket from the launch pad this month, following a similar test of the first-stage booster, B1085, which will be used to launch two people on the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station. On Saturday, NASA decided it would only send two people to the orbiting outpost on that mission in order to save space for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return home.
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