Billionaire Jared Isaacman suited up again to try and make his second trip to space courtesy of SpaceX with an early Tuesday launch opportunity from Kennedy Space Center on the Polaris Dawn mission.

Watch live as Falcon 9 launches the @PolarisProgram’s Polaris Dawn crew on a multi-day mission orbiting Earth https://t.co/u1KqQx5AFr

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 10, 2024

A Falcon 9 topped with the Crew Dragon Resilience is targeting a 3:38 a.m. liftoff from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A with backup options at 5:23 a.m. and 7:09 a.m. The same three launch times are available early Wednesday and Thursday as well.

SpaceX tried to launch the mission two weeks ago, but faced a scrub because of a helium leak on the launch pad followed by delays because of poor weather forecast for the planned recovery landing area off the coast of Florida at the end what is supposed to be a five-day mission.

Falcon 9 and Dragon are ready for flight. Weather is 40% favorable for liftoff and the webcast goes live ~3.5 hours ahead of launch → https://t.co/WpSw0gyH3s pic.twitter.com/Ay5o4EBdSJ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 10, 2024

Since it’s not docking with the International Space Station like most other Dragon flights, it needs good weather both on launch and landing days.

“Weather is currently 40% favorable for liftoff, and conditions at the possible splashdown sites for Dragon’s return to Earth remain a watch item,” the company posted late Sunday. SpaceX commentator John Insprucker said the weather chances had not changed, but for now, everything is counting down to the first launch opportunity.

“At T-minus 3 hours 8 minutes and counting, everything is go for launch,” he said soon after the launch webcast began.

The four crew then walked out from SpaceX’s crew building at Launch Complex 39-A and ventured into a pair of Teslas for a very short ride up the hill to the launch tower. They had all climbed aboard the capsule by 1 a.m. and performed com checks and suit leak checks before 1:30 a.m.

“The crew has taken their last breath of fresh air, until they splash down in five days,” said SpaceX commentator Jessie Anderson. “The side hatch is now closed. One of the last major milestones for the crew before liftoff.”

SpaceX has seven predetermined landing spots in either the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic. The Gulf this week is expected to see the formation of Tropical Storm Francine, but it could move ashore by Thursday and not be an issue with a landing not until Sunday. A pair of Atlantic systems would also be far from Florida by that time.

“This is a big improvement over the last two weeks. We are getting closer to getting this mission to orbit,” said Isaacman on a post on X.

How dangerous is Polaris Dawn spacewalk from SpaceX Crew Dragon?

The mission has only a few opportunities left this week before SpaceX will need to begin preparing the launch pad for an October flight of a Falcon Heavy on a mission for NASA to launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft. If Polaris Dawn cannot launch this week, Isaacman will have to wait until after that launch before he gets his shot to fly again.

He first flew to space on the same Crew Dragon in 2021 when he funded the Inspiration4 mission, the first all-commercial orbital spaceflight in history.

This is the third trip to space for Resilience, the least flown of SpaceX’s four active Crew Dragons. The first-stage booster for the mission is making its fourth trip to space and will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

Now with the first of up to three new missions partnered with SpaceX as part of the Polaris Program, Polaris Dawn will return Isaacman to space on a mission that seeks to perform the first commercial spacewalk in history.

He will be joined on the tethered spacewalk by SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis while her fellow SpaceX employee Anna Menon and Isaacman’s friend Scott Poteet, a former Air Force pilot, remain inside the capsule.

All four will have to wear SpaceX’s new extravehicular activity (EVA) suits for the event, which is slated for day three of the mission, since the Crew Dragon has no airlock, and the entire capsule’s atmosphere will need to be vented subjecting it to the vacuum of space.

It’s the biggest of three main objectives for the flight. The first objective, though, will take place on day one, when the quartet fly the capsule to an altitude of 870 miles, which would beat the low-Earth orbital record for a crewed mission set in 1966, when NASA astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon flew on the Gemini 11 mission to 853 miles. Apollo moon missions, obviously, flew to farther distances away from Earth.

Also planned for the flight are 36 research studies and experiments among 31 partner institutions including a SpaceX experiment to test Starlink laser-based communication in space.

It would mark SpaceX’s 14th crewed Dragon flight adding another four humans to the 50 it has already taken to space. Isaacman would be the second two-time flyer with former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría having flown on private Axiom Space missions to the ISS twice as well.

Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner makes crewless return to Earth

It would also be the first of two Dragon missions slated for this month as the Crew-9 mission is targeting liftoff from neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on what would Space Launch Complex 40’s first human spaceflight no earlier than Sept. 24.

That mission is only flying up two passengers instead of the normal four so that it can make room for the two NASA astronauts who were left behind on the ISS when NASA decided to send their ride, Boeing’s Starliner, back to Earth without them

Starliner made a successful landing in the desert early Saturday, but NASA opted to fly it home uncrewed after safety concerns about thrusters that had the potential to fail on the ride home.

Polaris Dawn would be the fourth U.S.-based orbital human spaceflight of the year after Starliner, March’s Crew-8 flight and the Axiom 3 mission in January.