The SpaceX and Polaris Dawn teams checked a couple of important boxes before they are ready to launch the historic commercial mission.
A little less than a week after arriving at Florida’s Space Coast, the four astronauts stepped through all the activities they will experience on launch day, including suiting and and climbing aboard the Crew Dragon Resilience, which will be their home during the roughly five-day mission.
Following the activity known as a dry dress rehearsal, SpaceX cleared the pad at Launch Complex 39A in order to conduct a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket. The T-0 for ignition happened at 6:38 a.m. EDT (1038 UTC).
The engine firing lasted about 11 seconds in total. SpaceX engineers took the data gathered from the operation and will review it as they make their final prelaunch preparations.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, B1083 in the SpaceX fleet, will make its fourth trip to space when it launches no earlier than Tuesday morning. It previously launched the Crew-8 mission aboard the Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in March, as well as two Starlink flights.
The SpaceX droneship that will be used to catch the booster following its pending launch, “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” set sail from Port Canaveral Saturday afternoon.
Polaris Dawn and SpaceX completed a full rehearsal of 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 “Kidd” Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, further than humans have gone since Apollo 17 in 1972 and witness the performance of the first commercial spacewalk.
It comes following more than two-and-a-half years of development work, testing and training across both SpaceX and NASA facilities.
“SpaceX and the teams and the crew, with their help, are continuing to push the envelope of what it takes to go to the Moon and Mars. We take the responsibility that we’ve been entrusted to us to fly the crew and return them safely home,” said William Gerstenmaier, the SpaceX vice president of Build and Flight Reliability, during a prelaunch briefing. “Spaceflight is not easy. Our mission right now is to safely launch Polaris, support their multi-day mission and return them home to their families and friends.”
This was SpaceX’s second launch pad static fire of the month, following a similar test on 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 determined that it will send just two people up to the orbiting outpost on this mission in order to preserve room for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return home.
