A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees are poised to launch on Tuesday aboard a modified Crew Dragon craft, before embarking on a 20-minute spacewalk 700km into space two days later.
Until now, walking into the empty expanse of space has only been attempted by government astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), 400km above Earth.
SpaceXs five-day mission dubbed Polaris Dawn will swing in an oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190km and as far as 1 400km, the farthest any humans will have ventured since the end of the Apollo moon programme in 1972.
Crew members, including billionaire Jared Isaacman, will don SpaceXs new, slimline spacesuits in a Crew Dragon vehicle that was modified so it can open its hatch door in the vacuum of space an unusual process that removes the need for an airlock.
Theyre pushing the envelope in multiple ways, retired Nasa astronaut Garrett Reisman said in an interview. Theyre also going to a much higher altitude, with a more severe radiation environment than weve been to since Apollo.
