After several days of frustrating weather that kept the mission on the ground, SpaceX and the crew of Polaris Dawn were able to thread the needle through a rainy night and launch their five-day mission this morning from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Liftoff was at 05:23 AM EDT, in the second opportunity of today’s launch window. Originally slated for 03:38 AM, SpaceX was forced to move to that second opportunity when rain cascaded over the launch area and also with lightning in the general vicinity of the launch pad. Both were show-stoppers, and SpaceX waited as long as possible before moving to the second launch window, where conditions improved sufficiently for the launch to proceed.
The flight to orbit was nominal throughout.
After completing systems checks on Crew Dragon this morning, Polaris Dawn plans to raise its apogee to around 1,400 km (~870 miles) in an elliptical orbit. If the maneuver is successful, they will break the crewed spacecraft altitude record set by Gemini 11 in 1966 of 1,369 km (~851 miles).
Polaris Dawn will remain in the higher orbit for a planned ten hours before lowering to 190 by 700 km (118 by 435 miles), which will be the final orbital location during the remaining duration of the mission. From that altitude, the crew will begin a busy slate of experiments and conduct the first spacewalk performed on a commercial spaceflight.
Finally, after around five days, Polaris Dawn and its four astronauts will return to Earth and splashdown either in the Gulf of Mexico or off the east coast of Florida.
