This will be one to watch for many reasons.

Ready Or Not

SpaceX is slated to launch a billionaire benefactor into orbit for the world’s first private spacewalk in the next few weeks — that is, if the mission doesn’t get postponed yet again.

As Space.com reports, the Elon Musk-owned company admitted in a press briefing over the weekend that its Polaris Dawn mission will now launch no earlier than August 19 following reschedulings that pushed it back to July 31.

The mission, which will take fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman aboard a Falcon 9 rocket to become the first space tourist to ever attempt a spacewalk, was postponed in the wake of another of the company’s rockets exploding earlier in July — though the official reasoning behind the slip seems to be traffic-related.

“There’s a lot going on on [the International Space Station] right now,” explained Sarah Walker, the director of SpaceX’s Dragon mission management, during the presser. “We opted to fly the Crew-9 mission as our next [astronaut] mission and are ready to fly Polaris Dawn in late summer, as soon as we fulfill those obligations.”

She later clarified that “late summer” meant at some point in August, Space.com notes.

Flying Solo-ish

This will be neither the first time Isaacman has flown up on a SpaceX rocket — he previously took an incredibly expensive orbital vacation in 2021 — nor the first time this specific mission has slipped launch dates.

As Space.com explains, Polaris Dawn was originally slated for late 2022, but it’s been pushed back repeatedly. Given the official cause of the slip, it’s unclear whether this most recent postponement is due to the Falcon 9 explosion or not.

When the Polaris Dawn mission — which is supposed to be the first of three additional trips after his first one — is finally launched, it won’t link up with the ISS but will instead see Isaacman and his comrades fly farther into Earth’s orbit than any other Dragon mission to date.

Postponements aside, it’s nevertheless going to be incredible to watch Isaacman and the crew flying up with him to ghostride the whip — as he becomes the first space tourist ever to do so.

Updated to better describe the Falcon 9 failure.

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