Area residents awake at 5:30 Tuesday morning had the chance to see SpaceX’s latest rocket streak across the dark sky. This photo was taken in Buena Vista by Jason Mikels, husband of N-G’s advertising consultant April Mikels. The Polaris Dawn mission, whose four-member crew will conduct the first-ever private spacewalk, lifted off atop a SpaceX rocket Tuesday at 5:23 a.m. from NASA’s Kennedy SpaceCenter in Florida. The mission is scheduled to last a little more than five days, with the crew splashing down off the coast of Florida.
