The First Ever Spacewalk From The SpaceX Crew Dragon Ship Has Been Postponed Until The Summer

American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who is the organizer and sponsor of the private commercial mission Polaris Dawn, said that it will take place no earlier than the summer of 2024. Among other things, they plan to make the first ever spacewalk during a commercial space flight.

“We now plan to launch Polaris Dawn, the first of three crewed spaceflights in the Polaris program, no earlier than summer 2024,” reads a post on the Polaris social media account X. It also said additional time is needed to ensure all goals and mission, as well as preparations for the safe launch and return of the Crew Dragon crew to Earth.

 Note that this is not the first time that the Polaris Dawn mission has been postponed.  This launch was originally planned for December 2022. It was first pushed back to March 2023, then delayed until the summer, and ultimately pushed back indefinitely to 2024. Plans were later announced to launch in April 2024, but the mission has now been postponed once again.  Each time, the message about the transfer of the mission was associated with difficulties that arose during the development of SpaceX spacesuits for spacewalks.

The current transfer is due to the unavailability of spacesuits. The mission will involve a modification of SpaceX’s current suits, which will allow astronauts to perform spacewalks. It is reported that their creation turned out to be more difficult than the engineers expected.  Because of this, the launch of Polaris Dawn has been postponed to at least mid-2024.

Now the Polaris Dawn crew is actively preparing for the upcoming flight and is rehearsing for spacewalks in new spacesuits.  At the same time, neither Jared Isaacman nor SpaceX have yet published their photographs.