In addition to the first private company spacewalk, SpaceX's mission codenamed Polar Star Dawn is also planned to have the farthest flight orbit from Earth, 1,400 kilometers, creating the farthest distance from Earth for humans since the end of the 1972 American Apollo moon landing mission. Two engineers from Space X onboard will become the women who have flown farthest from Earth.
This Tuesday may witness a historic moment. SpaceX, a space exploration technology company owned by Musk, plans to launch a manned spacecraft that day to carry out the first commercial spacewalk mission in human history.
According to the schedule released on the SpaceX official website, the company plans to launch the Falcon 9 rocket into low Earth orbit from the Kennedy Space Center 39A launch pad in Florida, USA, at 3:38 am Eastern Time on Tuesday, August 27. The crew, codenamed Polaris Dawn, will be sent into space to carry out the mission. The company also has two other launch opportunities within four hours, at 5:23 am and 7:09 am Eastern Time. If the mission is postponed, the company will have three backup launch opportunities on Wednesday, August 28, at the same time as Tuesday.
According to some media reports, the Polaris Dawn mission by SpaceX is a five-day mission, with the core being spacewalk. Although spacewalk is a routine task for NASA astronauts, this will be the first time a private company attempts a spacewalk by astronauts. This mission will also set a record, as it will allow astronauts to reach a high orbit of 1,400 kilometers above the Earth. The elliptical orbit of the mission ranges from 190 kilometers to 1,400 kilometers, which is the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth since the end of the Apollo Moon landing program in 1972.
On the 19th of this month, Musk referred to this mission as an "epic feat" and the "early pioneers of the interstellar era." If the project progresses smoothly, hundreds of people will be sent to Earth orbit, the moon, and even Mars in the future with the help of related technologies.
SpaceX states that the Dragon spacecraft and the astronauts on board will strive to reach the highest orbit around the Earth since the Apollo program. The commercial astronauts participating in the flight will be the first to wear the extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuit developed by SpaceX for spacewalks. They will also carry out 36 research experiments involving 31 participating institutions, aiming to promote human health on Earth and during long-term space travel, as well as test the Starlink laser communication system in space.
Public information shows that the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission crew consists of four individuals. Among them, mission commander Jared Isaacman is the founder and CEO of the electronic payment company Shift4, and is also the mission's benefactor. He has accumulated over 6000 hours of flight time in high-performance aircraft, and participated in SpaceX's Inspiration4 space mission in 2021, also serving as the commander. Following the Inspiration4 mission, he purchased three space travel flights under the SpaceX Polaris program, with Polaris Dawn being the first flight. Isaacman has declined to disclose how much he spent on this flight, but estimates from external sources exceed 0.1 billion dollars.
The other three members of the crew—mission pilot Kidd Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon—are all participating in a human spaceflight mission for the first time.
Gillis and Menon are engineers at SpaceX, marking the first time employees of SpaceX have become manned spaceflight crew members. Gillis is the chief space operations engineer responsible for astronaut training at SpaceX, having previously served as a trainer for the Inspiration4 mission. Menon is the chief operations engineer at SpaceX in charge of crew operations development, and has served as a flight controller for the company's Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions.
Poteet is a friend of Isaacman's and a retired lieutenant colonel who has flown as a pilot in the United States Air Force, with 20 years of service and over 3200 hours of jet aircraft flight experience.
As planned, on the third day of the Dragon spacecraft's spaceflight, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the module to conduct separate spacewalks, each lasting approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Although only the two of them will be conducting the spacewalk, all crew members will be wearing SpaceX-developed extravehicular suits, as the entire interior of the Dragon spacecraft will be exposed to the vacuum of space during the operations. The entire process from venting the spacecraft's atmosphere to resealing it will take about two hours.
If the first stage of the spacecraft's flight reaches the planned altitude of 1400 kilometers from Earth as scheduled, it will not only set the record for the furthest distance astronauts have traveled into space since the Apollo lunar missions, but will also make Gillis and Menon the women who have traveled the furthest from Earth.
Editor/Lambor