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SpaceX is preparing to launch its Citizen Crew on Tuesday on a daring orbital expedition that will mark the first spacewalk by private citizens and a new chapter in space exploration.
Also read:SpaceX launches new crew to International Space Station
The Polaris Dawn mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, is scheduled to launch at 3:38 a.m. (07:38 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with backup launch opportunities later in the morning and on Wednesday.
Weather conditions are currently good and SpaceX will broadcast the event live online.
Atop a Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will reach a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than any crewed mission in more than half a century since the Apollo era.
Mission commander Isaacman will lead his four-member team in the mission’s centerpiece: the first commercial spacewalk, outfitted in the sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.
“It’s going to be a super cool mission,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk promised on X.
Joining Isaacman on the mission are mission pilot, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Poteet, mission specialist, SpaceX chief space operations engineer Sarah Gillis, and mission specialist and medical officer, SpaceX chief space operations engineer Anna Menon.
To prepare for the landmark mission, the four trained for more than two years, spending 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 Project Polaris, a partnership between Isaacman, founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX.
Also read:SpaceX plans to launch six Starlink satellites with direct-talk capabilities
“The idea is to develop (and) test new technologies and operations to achieve SpaceX’s bold vision of enabling human interstellar travel,” Isaacman said in a recent press release.
Isaacman declined to reveal his total investment in the project, but reports indicate he paid around $200 million for the September 2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 mission, the first human orbital mission.
Polaris Dawn will reach its highest altitude on the first day, briefly entering the Van Allen radiation belts, a region filled with high-energy charged particles that pose a threat to human health in the long term.
The crew’s flight will orbit nearly three times higher than the International Space Station, but still well below the record-breaking distance of more than 248,000 miles set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970.
The Apollo 13 astronauts, after a long journey, decided to orbit the far side of the Moon after an explosion disabled their spacecraft, aborting their planned lunar landing and forcing them to return to Earth without the ability to perform major propulsive maneuvers.
On the third day, the astronauts will don state-of-the-art extravehicular space suits — equipped with a heads-up display, helmet camera and advanced joint motion system — and take turns to leave the spacecraft in groups of two, each spending 15 to 20 minutes in space, 435 miles above the Earth’s surface.
However, it is worth noting that since the Dragon spacecraft capsule has no airlock, even if two people are fixed in their seats, they will be exposed to the vacuum of space.
The second day will be devoted to testing laser-based satellite communications between the spacecraft and Starlink (SpaceX’s constellation of more than 6,000 internet satellites) to increase the speed of space communications.
The astronauts will also conduct nearly 40 experiments designed to improve our understanding of human health during long-duration spaceflight. These include testing the use of contact lenses embedded with microelectronics to continuously monitor changes in eye pressure and shape.
After six days in space, the mission will splash down off the coast of Florida, where a SpaceX recovery ship will be waiting.
The second Polestar mission will also use Dragon, while the third and final mission will be the first crewed flight of Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket prototype that is key to Musk’s vision of one day colonizing Mars.
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