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Crewed SpaceX Mission Delayed after Leak in Ground Equipment

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission due to launch on August 27 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 26, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission due to launch on August 27 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 26, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)
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Crewed SpaceX Mission Delayed after Leak in Ground Equipment

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission due to launch on August 27 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 26, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission due to launch on August 27 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 26, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)

The launch of SpaceX's four-person Polaris Dawn mission will be delayed by at least a day because of a helium leak in ground equipment at Kennedy Space Center, the company said on Tuesday, hours before the scheduled liftoff of its Crew Dragon capsule.
The highlight of the five-day mission is expected to come two days after launch, when the crew embarks on a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700 km) from earth, in history's first such private spacewalk.
The company now aims to launch the spacecraft, carried by a Falcon 9 booster, at 3:38 a.m. (0738 GMT) on Wednesday, it said in a posting on X.
"Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak," it added in Tuesday's post. "Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission to low-Earth orbit."
Only government astronauts have performed spacewalks to date, most recently by occupants of the International Space Station, who regularly don spacesuits to perform maintenance and other checks of their orbital home.
The first US spacewalk was in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, and used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurised, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.
Polaris Dawn's crew will be testing SpaceX's new, slimline spacesuits during the spacewalk.
Only two of the four - billionaire Jared Isaacman, mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both senior engineers at the company - will leave the spacecraft.
Isaacman, the founder of electronic payment company Shift4, bankrolled the mission; he has declined to say how much he has spent, but it is estimated to be more than $100 million.

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Rwanda and WHO Declare End of Marburg Outbreak after No New Cases Reported

In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
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Rwanda and WHO Declare End of Marburg Outbreak after No New Cases Reported

In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)
In this Oct. 8, 2014 photo, a medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit wearing full protective equipment carries a meal to an isolation tent housing a man being quarantined after coming into contact in Uganda with a carrier of the Marburg Virus, at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP)

The World Health Organization and the Rwandan government on Friday declared the outbreak in Rwanda of the Ebola-like Marburg fever over after no new cases were registered in recent weeks.

The country first declared the outbreak on Sept. 27 and reported a total of 15 deaths and 66 cases, with the majority of those affected healthcare workers who handled the first patients.

Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.

There is no authorized vaccine or treatment for Marburg, though Rwanda received hundreds of doses of a vaccine under trial in October.

An outbreak is considered over after 42 days — two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus — elapsed without registering new cases and all existing cases test negative.

Rwanda discharged the last Marburg patient on Nov. 8 and had reported no new confirmed cases since Oct. 30.

However, WHO officials and Rwanda's Health Minister Dr. Sabin Nzanzimana on Friday said risks remain and that people should stay vigilant.

“We believe it’s not completely over because we still face risks, especially from bats. We are continuing to build new strategies, form new health teams, and deploy advanced technologies to track their movements, understand their behavior, and monitor who is interacting with them,” the minister announced during a press conference in the capital, Kigali.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is believed to originate in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets.

“I thank the government of Rwanda, its leadership and Rwandans in general for the strong response to achieve this success but the battle continues,” said the WHO representative in Rwanda, Dr. Brain Chirombo.

Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana.

The virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in the German city of Marburg and in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. Seven people died after being exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.