Polaris Dawn launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on mission into Earth’s radiation belts

SpaceX launched the Polaris Dawn mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Press Site on Tuesday morning, a mission into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts in which a four-person crew of civilians seeks to carry out the first commercial spacewalk.

The crew aboard a Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket were launched from pad 39A at 5:23 a.m., pushed back from the earlier scheduled liftoff time of 3:38 a.m. due to weather conditions.

The launch was live-streamed on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

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The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster, after flying along a northeasterly trajectory, landed aboard a SpaceX drone ship out at sea about nine and a half minutes after liftoff. Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage a short time later.

The crew will spend five days in space before returning to Florida.

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This comes after multiple problems prevented the Polaris Dawn crew’s attempts to launch in late August.

A problem with ground equipment at the launch site pushed the target date back by 24 hours, and weather conditions forced SpaceX to delay two more launch attempts.

A Falcon 9 had also malfunctioned during a routine satellite mission, leading federal regulators to briefly halt all Falcon 9 rockets from launching before SpaceX was given the green light on August 30.

“Liftoff of Polaris Dawn!” SpaceX wrote on X.