Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to launch its first commercial spacewalk next week.
The space flight, named Polaris Dawn, will launch from Florida on Monday (August 26) and is the first of three planned missions by billionaire and Shift4 founder Jared Isaacman, who bought it from Space X in 2022.
He said Polaris Dawn aims to “expand the boundaries of private space travel and inspire.”
He said: “That’s the inspiring side of it… anything that’s different from what we’ve seen in the last 20 or 30 years excites people and makes them think, ‘If this is what I see today, I wonder what it will look like tomorrow or a year from now.'”
Musk also commented on the news, calling the upcoming mission “epic” on his social media platform X.
When will the mission take place?
Polaris Dawn is scheduled to launch from Florida in the early hours of Monday, August 26.
Isaacman said in an interview with CNBC’s Investing in Space last month: “We can’t pinpoint a specific time of day for the launch, but I think it will work out to be pretty close to sunrise, which is very appropriate given the mission.”
Who flies into space?
The four-person crew consists of billionaire and Shift4 founder Isaacman, his colleague Scott Poteet and two SpaceX engineers, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.
Poteet will be a pilot, while Menon and Gillis will serve as flight medics and mission specialists.
The multi-day journey does not have a specific destination in mind, but is a free-flight mission in which the rocket will travel through orbits that the crew believes will be far from Earth.
Isaacman added: “We are reaching heights that humans have not reached in over 50 years.”
What are they doing there?
There is a five-day mission plan that calls for astronauts to exit the spacecraft to undertake a planned spacewalk.
Their orbit in the Dragon capsule will extend into the solar radiation belt, which is another element of danger. It’s something humans will have to overcome if they want to travel to Mars. Isaacman said the team is aware that they will be “surrounded by death” during a spacewalk.
On the first day, the crew will reach an orbit of 190 km (118 miles) and then conduct extensive checks of the spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule called Resilience. The boundary with space begins at about 80 km (50 miles). The Polaris Dawn crew plans to travel as far as 870 miles (1,400 km) from Earth.
Isaacman said: “It is really important to know that the vehicle has no defects before it ascends to an altitude of 1,400 km.”
The second day will focus on some of the science and research that Polaris Dawn plans to conduct. In total, about 40 experiments are planned. The crew will also prepare for the spacewalk and test the innovative EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) suits.
On the third day, the team plans to undertake a spacewalk, with only Isaacman and Gillis, tethered by a few life support lines, leaving the spacecraft.
Polaris Dawn plans to live stream the spacewalk, and the mission commander stressed that there will be “lots of cameras” inside and outside the capsule.
They will spend the rest of their time compiling the data they found and then returning to Earth.
The goal of the Polaris program is to develop technologies that SpaceX will one day need as it launches humans deeper into space, including spacesuits, EVA and life support technologies. The crew will also test laser-based Starlink communications in space.
