Spacewalk: Astronauts and mission specialist Anna Menon, pilot Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis are the four people on SpaceX’s daring, multibillion-dollar Polaris Dawn mission, aiming to conduct the first private spacewalk and venture farther than anyone since NASA’s Apollo moonshots.
The mission launched before dawn aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday, midway through the five-day flight.
Two of the mission’s four crew members will venture outside their Crew Dragon capsule in Earth orbit for a tethered spacewalk, marking the first major test of SpaceX’s new spacesuits.
Who are the astronauts on board the SpaceX mission?
Isaacman, along with a pair of SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, are on board for the historic attempt.
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission is set to make history this week with the first privately managed spacewalk, a risky endeavor previously undertaken only by government astronauts.
The capsule lacks an airlock and will be completely depressurized for the spacewalk, requiring all four crew members to rely on their suits to survive.
JARED ISAACMAN
Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments and an experienced pilot, is in command of the Polaris Dawn mission and will be one of two members, along with Sarah Gillis, to conduct the spacewalk outside the capsule.
It is funding the mission under its Polaris program, though it declined to disclose the total cost, estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The mission will be his second foray into space, after leading the first all-civilian Inspiration4 mission to orbit Earth in 2021, organized and funded primarily by him in partnership with SpaceX.
After Polaris Dawn, Isaacman has two more missions planned under the Polaris program: another flight on Crew Dragon followed by a flight on Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket in development. He has not announced crew members or dates for those flights.
Sarah Gillis
Gillis has trained astronauts, and now she’s becoming one herself. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with an engineering degree, started as an intern at SpaceX in 2015, and is now the company’s senior space operations engineer. Her responsibilities include training astronauts in safety and flight operations. A Polaris Dawn mission specialist, Gillis has trained NASA astronauts for several operations, including the Dragon Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions to the International Space Station and the Inspiration4 mission in 2021.
SCOTT CAN
Poteet, the pilot of the Polaris Dawn mission, had a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force, with more than 3,200 flight hours in various aircraft, including the F-16 fighter jet.
Poteet’s involvement in the private space sector began when he served as Mission Director for the Inspiration4 mission.
The New Hampshire native’s role on the latest mission extends beyond simply piloting the spacecraft, also including assisting with the spacewalk, providing communications support and assisting with mission control.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Poteet served as vice president of strategy at Isaacman’s company Shift4 until 2022. Until 2020, he was director of business development at defense contractor Draken International, founded by Isaacman, before selling a majority stake in the firm to Blackstone in 2019.
Let me go
Menon is a mission specialist and program medical officer and is the lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, where she manages the development of crew operations, ensuring procedures and protocols are implemented for astronauts during their missions.
The former NASA biomedical flight controller will be responsible for the health and well-being of the crew during the Polaris Dawn mission, monitoring their physiological responses and providing medical care if necessary.
He holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.
Menon is married to Anil Menon, a former SpaceX flight surgeon who is now a NASA astronaut in training.
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