A four-person crew for SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of their August 26 launch to space for a mission that includes the first privately managed spacewalk, a risky endeavor only government astronauts have done in the past.
The crew – a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees – neared the end of more than two years of training for the mission, in which they will venture out of their Crew Dragon capsule in Earth’s orbit for a tethered spacewalk.
The mission will be a major first test of SpaceX’s new astronaut spacesuits and marks the latest risky, high-stakes commercial milestone that Elon Musk’s space company is looking to clinch on the billionaire’s path to eventually building colonies on Mars.
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