The first commercial space flight to enter space now has a launch date. Polaris DawnPart of the private human space flight program funded by billionaire Jared Isaac, project officials made a brief statement today (July 3) about X. Isaacman, announcing that SpaceX co-founder and CEO Elon Musk will provide his company. No statement has yet been published on social networks regarding the Polaris Dawn capsule Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket.

The crew plans to conduct a series of experiments, as well as the first dedicated spacewalk in special SpaceX spacesuits. Polaris Dawn’s orbit will take the mission to an altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers) above Earth, the highest crewed flight since the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. By comparison, the International Space Station orbits at about 250 miles (400 kilometers).

Polaris Dawn will be the first of three missions in the Polaris program funded and managed entirely by Isaacman. The Shift4 founder also led and funded the September 2021 launch of the all-civilian Inspiration4, which raised $250 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee; Isaacman plans to continue that support with Polaris missions.

Alongside Isaacman, the mission also stars retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Scott “Kidd” Poteet as pilots and mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both SpaceX operations engineers.

Project officials said the complexity of the mission required development delays from the original launch target of late 2022. The latest significant delay, in February 2024, pushed the planned April launch into the summer.

“The additional time continues to provide the development time necessary to ensure both the achievement of these mission objectives and the safe launch and return of Dragon and the crew,” the Polaris program said at the time, via X.

The training program has also changed, Poteet noted during a discussion on “Spaces” at X on May 4. “We’ve built on what NASA has done for generations in terms of identifying environments and situations that cause stress,” he said, noting that part of the job involves learning where teammates are performing well and where they don’t need help.