The commander of SpaceX’s historic Polaris Dawn mission has apologized to those who traveled from far and wide to Florida’s Space Coast to watch the launch, which was supposed to take place on Tuesday, August 27, but has now been delayed multiple times with no new date set.
“We sincerely apologize to those who have traveled to see our launch and have faced delays,” Jared Isaacman said in a post on social media on Thursday.
A ground-based issue at the launch site prompted engineers to push Tuesday’s planned liftoff to Wednesday. But then hours before that launch effort, SpaceX had to stand down again due to a weather report forecasting poor conditions in the splashdown zone off the coast of Florida at the time of the crew’s return five days later.
Another blow came later on Wednesday when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that it was grounding SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket — the one that will be used to launch the Polaris Dawn crew to orbit — while it investigates an accident earlier in the week in which a first-stage Falcon 9 booster toppled over and exploded shortly after touching down on a droneship after deploying a batch of Starlink satellites to orbit.
There’s much interest in the Polaris Dawn mission as it will involve the first-ever commercial spacewalk and also take the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft further from Earth — about 435 miles (700 kilometers) — than ever before. All the crew members are non-professional astronauts, too, and all but Isaacman will be traveling to space for the first time.
Once the FAA gives the green light to SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 launches (a similar investigation in July saw the Falcon 9 grounded for two weeks), SpaceX will assess the weather conditions once again — both for launch and landing — for the four-person Polaris Dawn mission.
“The crew remains in quarantine, staying productive, keeping fit, and ready to launch within approximately 30 hours of receiving a favorable forecast,” Isaacman wrote in the same post on Thursday.
He added: “Space exploration demands patience, resilience, and teamwork. We are deeply grateful for the dedication of everyone involved and for the support of those who believe in our mission. Together, we are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and continuing humanity’s journey to the stars.”