Four private astronauts will rocket into the upper reaches of Earth’s orbit aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, where their program will also include the first commercial spacewalk.
SpaceX mission Polaris Dawn prepares the ground for the first commercial spacewalk
When SpaceX launches the Polaris Dawn mission this month, it will reach greater altitudes than any manned mission since Apollo — but that’s not all.
The four civilians who make up the groundbreaking crew of the Polaris Dawn are about to embark on a daring space mission that includes the first spacewalk by anyone other than government astronauts.
The ambitious effort will be under the command of none other than billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the man behind another historic commercial mission in 2021 that saw the first all-civilian crew fly into space. Isaacman and his crew arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week to finalize preparations for the launch, which SpaceX said is scheduled to take place no earlier than Wednesday morning.
The crew faces a daunting journey into the upper reaches of Earth’s orbit, where they will spend five crucial days conducting tests that could lay the foundation for future space exploration before splashing down at sea on day six.
Here you can find out everything you need to know about Polaris Dawn, its potentially historic mission and its intrepid crew.
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What is the Polaris Dawn mission?
Polaris Dawn is much more than just a trip into space funded by billionaires.
In orbit, Isaacman and the crew hope to make history and test space technologies on behalf of SpaceX that could prove critical as NASA and other space agencies target destinations like Mars.
The goals of the crew’s five-day stay aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule are:
- Reach heights no human has ever reached since the end of NASA’s Apollo moon program in the 1970s: The Dragon will take a path that will take the crew high enough to cross the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt at an altitude of 1,400 kilometers above the Earth’s surface – more than three times higher than the International Space Station.
- Attempt to be the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk 700 kilometers above the Earth: Two crew members will open the hatch and exit the spacecraft while wearing extravehicular activity (EVA) suits developed by SpaceX. However, because Dragon does not have an airlock, its entire interior is exposed to the vacuum of space, meaning all four astronauts will wear the suits to receive oxygen via tethers.
- Conduct nearly 40 scientific experiments and test a new laser-based satellite communications system with Starlink – and at the same time the advertising was used to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
On the sixth day of the mission, the SpaceX vehicle will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and splash down at one of seven locations off the coast of Florida.
“We hope the results of our mission will accelerate SpaceX’s vision of creating life on multiple planets,” Isaacman said in a statement. “Throughout our mission, we want to inspire humanity to look up and imagine what we can accomplish here on Earth and in the worlds beyond our own.”
Polaris Dawn launch date: How to follow the launch
The four-person crew of Polaris Dawn is scheduled to embark on their mission into Earth orbit on Wednesday at the earliest.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that will carry them into orbit will lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
The launch was delayed on Tuesday to give ground crew time to take a closer look at “a helium leak on the ground” on a piece of equipment designed to detach from the rocket during launch, SpaceX said on X.
If another mission abort becomes necessary, SpaceX says the launch could still take place on Thursday morning.
SpaceX will stream the launch via X (formerly Twitter), and the NASA facility has sold tickets to watch the launch in person at the Florida base.
FLORIDA TODAY, part of the USA TODAY Network, will also provide live coverage approximately two hours before launch at floridatoday.com/space.
What are the Van Allen radiation belts?
The Van Allen Belts pose one of the greatest dangers for future astronauts venturing deep into the cosmos.
According to NASA, the belts are two regions of trapped cosmic radiation in the magnetosphere that surrounds the Earth like “a giant doughnut.” The outer belt is made up of billions of high-energy particles that originate from the sun, while the inner belt is created by interactions of cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere.
The International Space Station’s orbit keeps the outer station safely below the radiation belts, but future astronauts will have to fly through them to reach the Moon and eventually Mars.
As the Polaris Dawn crew traverses the radiation belts, the nose of their SpaceX spacecraft will be oriented to minimize astronauts’ exposure to harmful radiation.
“If we want to have (SpaceX) spacecraft regularly going to the Moon or Mars in the future, we need to fly through the Van Allen Belts on a regular basis,” Isaacman told Florida Today in an email.
Why is it called the Polaris program?
The space program is named after Polaris, a constellation of three stars commonly known as the North Star, which has served as a guiding light throughout human history.
Who is Jared Isaacman, the billionaire behind Polaris Dawn?
Isaacman, a billionaire who co-funded the Polaris Dawn mission, will not watch the launch from the ground: The experienced pilot and adventurer from Pennsylvania will be aboard the Dragon capsule and serve as mission commander.
Isaacman famously dropped out of high school at 16 to start his internet company Shift4 Payments, and in recent years has become something of a passionate space traveler.
In 2021, he served as mission commander of Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian space mission that brought commercial space tourism to the world. The mission, funded by Isaacman himself, flew four civilians into deep space orbit for three days and raised more than $250 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Isaacman has more than 7,000 hours of flight experience and is also an aviation enthusiast who is certified to fly military fighter jets.
Isaacman said in his email to Florida Today that he does not expect to fly into space again after the Inspiration4 mission.
“I didn’t plan to return until I visited Elon at Starbase in October 2021,” Isaacman said in an email to the outlet. “At that time, we discussed opportunities for test and development missions that would help advance SpaceX’s larger vision of creating life on multiple planets.”
Meet the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew
Isaacman will lead a crew consisting of a pilot and two mission specialists.
- pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew with the Thunderbirds. Poteet, a New Hampshire native, previously served as mission director for Inspiration4.
- Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, a native of Colorado who works as a senior aerospace engineer at SpaceX, where she is responsible for overseeing the company’s astronaut training program. Gillis trained the Inspiration4 astronauts.
- Mission Specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, a senior aerospace engineer for SpaceX who has worked in mission control on several manned missions. Menon, of Houston, has written a children’s book called “Kisses from Space” inspired by her experiences preparing for the Polaris Dawn mission and her desire to share her spaceflight experience with her two young children. She plans to read it from space during the mission.
What’s next for the Polaris program?
Polaris Dawn is the first of three manned space flights as part of the Polaris program, which will test SpaceX’s technologies needed to send humans deep into space.
The second mission “will further push the boundaries of future human spaceflight missions, space communications and scientific research,” the program’s website says. Further details, including a launch date, have not yet been announced.
When the day comes for the third and final mission of the Polaris program to launch, it will be the first manned space flight on SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The gigantic rocket, which has only undergone unmanned testing so far, will one day carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface as part of the space agency NASA’s Artemis program.
Contributor: Brooke Edwards, Florida Today
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
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