CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The private astronauts behind a U.S. billionaire's Polaris Dawn flight to attempt the world's first private spacewalk landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Monday (Aug. 19), with a week to go before their launch into space.
Polaris Dawn is the second privately crewed SpaceX mission funded by philanthropist billionaire Jared Isaacman, and the first of at least three launches he hopes to fly under the "Polaris" program. The launch stands as a follow-up to Isaacman's 2021 Inspiration4 mission, in which he and three other private citizens launched on the first-ever civilian-only spaceflight. Inspiration4 helped raise $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and Isaacman hopes to build on that momentum through the trio of Polaris missions.
