Not an alien - Rocket lights up pre-dawn sky
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, along with a pair of SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, launched before dawn aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.
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The pre-dawn skies above the tri-state area were lit up by the launch of a rocket this morning.
A daredevil billionaire rocketed back into orbit Tuesday, aiming to perform the first private spacewalk and venture farther than anyone since NASA's Apollo moonshots.
Unlike his previous chartered flight, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman shared the cost with SpaceX this time around, which included developing and testing brand-new spacesuits to see how they'll hold up in the harsh vacuum.
If all goes as planned, it will be the first time private citizens conduct a spacewalk, but they won’t venture away from the capsule. Considered one of the most riskiest parts of spaceflight, spacewalks have been the sole realm of professional astronauts since the former Soviet Union popped open the hatch in 1965, closely followed by the U.S. Today, they are routinely done at the International Space Station.
Isaacman, along with a pair of SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, launched before dawn aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday, midway through the five-day flight.
But first, the passengers are shooting for way beyond the International Space Station — an altitude of 870 miles, which would surpass the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966. Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther.
AP wires were used in this report
