A billionaire and his three crew members hope to make history as they prepare to get shot into space on a mission that is planned to include the first-ever civilian spacewalk.
The Polaris Dawn team will launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, with a Falcon 9 rocket performing the lifting duties. Blast off is scheduled to take place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:38 a.m. ET on Tuesday, August 27. Should SpaceX need to postpone the launch, the company said on its website there are two backup times that morning, one at 5:23 a.m. and the other at 7:09 a.m. If a launch during those times is impossible, the launch could take place during the following morning.
The launch will be livestreamed starting 3.5 hours before liftoff on the SpaceX website, and via X.
If Polaris Dawn proceeds as planned, the Crew Dragon capsule is expected to reach a maximum orbit of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth. This would not only mark the highest altitude a Dragon capsule has reached but also set a new record for the highest Earth orbit apogee. The current record, held by the 1966 Gemini XI mission, is 853 miles (1,373 kilometers). While the Apollo missions traveled much farther to reach the Moon, they did not achieve such high altitudes while orbiting Earth.
The crew plans to stay in orbit for up to five days, during which they will conduct over 30 research studies and experiments. These include gathering data on radiation conditions in space and conducting several experiments related to human survival in space. For the centerpiece of the mission, the capsule will lower its orbit to 435 miles (700 km) above Earth, where two of the four crew members will participate in the first-ever spacewalk conducted by private citizens. Previously, all spacewalks had been carried out by astronauts from government space agencies.
If all goes well, the spacewalk will be just one of several firsts. Polaris Dawn will include the inaugural deployment of SpaceX’s extravehicular activity (EVA) space suit. And as the Crew Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, all four crew members will be exposed to the vacuum of space, meaning the EVA’s success during the spacewalk is critical not only as a test of its viability, but to the survival of the entire crew.
SpaceX unveiled the EVA suit in May after years of delays, and is a modification of the space company’s intravehicular activity suit. It was designed with enhanced mobility for astronauts in mind and includes 3D-printed helmets to reduce glare from the Sun while the wearer is outside their vehicle, as well as a state-of-the-art heads-up display and camera. The suit was also designed to be scaled up for different body types, allowing for mass production.
The crew will also be the first to test out Starlink’s laser-based communications in space. According to SpaceX, the goal is to develop the system for use in missions to the Moon and Mars “and beyond.”
Among Polaris Dawn’s crew members is the person funding the mission. Jared Isaacman is serving as mission commander, but is best known as the billionaire CEO of payment processing firm Shift4. Isaacman previously went to space aboard Inspiration4, the first all-civilian trip to orbit. Along with the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew, he has spent the past two years training for the mission. Alongside Polaris Dawn, Isaacson is paying SpaceX an undisclosed amount for two more Polaris missions, the final of which is hoped to be the first crewed mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship reusable transport system. No launch dates have been announced for the follow-up missions.
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