SpaceX launched its historic Polaris Dawn mission on Tuesday (Image: AFP)
SpaceX launched its innovative Polaris Dawn On Tuesday, the mission will send civilians on an ambitious journey into a radiation-rich area of space. The mission will also include the first spacewalk by nonprofessional astronauts. Led by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, the four-person crew aims to travel farther into space than any manned mission since the Apollo era more than 50 years ago.
On the first day of the mission, they will reach a maximum altitude of 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) before returning to a lower orbit.
The highlight of the trip is scheduled for Thursday: the first spacewalk by civilians, outfitted in sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits with heads-up displays, helmet-mounted cameras and an advanced joint mobility system.
SpaceX has scheduled the EVA for 0623 GMT on Thursday, with a backup window on Friday at the same time.
Because the Crew Dragon capsule lacks an airlock, the entire crew will be exposed to the vacuum of space during the spacewalk, which lasts about 15 minutes, while two of them venture outside, tethered to the spacecraft.
“I think the world is a more interesting place when you can travel among the stars,” Isaacman said in a video message released by SpaceX. “We will develop technologies and test technologies that will help SpaceX achieve its long-term ambitions of making human life interplanetary.”
High radiation zone
The capsule lifted off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday morning. Applause erupted in mission control as it successfully separated from the main engine and the first glimpses of Earth appeared.
Founder and CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk joined in the celebrations, as shown by a photo reposted by him on X.
At its higher altitudes, the capsule will enter the Van Allen radiation belt, a region packed with high-energy charged particles that can pose health risks for extended periods.
Although the crew will orbit nearly three times higher than the International Space Station, they will not surpass the record distance of 248,000 miles achieved by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970.
The Apollo 13 astronauts achieved that distance while flying around the Moon after an explosion forced them to return to Earth in an emergency.
Two years of preparation
Isaacman has remained silent about his total investment in the project, though reports suggest he paid around $200 million for the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, the first all-civilian orbital mission.
Rounding out the team are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, a principal space operations engineer at SpaceX; and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, also a principal space operations engineer at SpaceX.
The quartet underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the historic mission, logging hundreds of hours in simulators, as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving and summiting an Ecuadorian volcano.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions in the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX. The latest mission is scheduled to be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship prototype, the rocket the company envisions as the key to future colonization of Mars.
In addition to their spacewalk, the crew will test laser-based satellite communications between the spacecraft and the Starlink satellite constellation, with the goal of improving space communication speeds.
They will also conduct 36 scientific experiments, including tests on contact lenses with embedded microelectronics to monitor changes in eye pressure and shape, adding to the growing body of space research aimed at advancing human exploration beyond Earth.
(With contributions from AFP)
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