Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman testing the spacesuit.
John Kraus / Polaris Program
SpaceX is preparing to launch its next private mission later this month, its first attempt to send astronauts into space.
The Polaris Dawn mission – the first of three flights by the billionaire and Layer4 Founder Jared Isaacman purchased the spacecraft from SpaceX in 2022 for his manned spaceflight project known as the Polaris program – launch is scheduled for the early hours of August 26 from Florida.
“We don’t have the freedom to choose what time of day we can start, but I think it will work out. [be] pretty close to dawn, which is very appropriate given the mission,” Isaacman said in an interview with CNBC's Investing in Space last month.
Read more CNBC space news
Isaacman will lead the mission, as he did on the historic Inspiration4 flight in 2021. He will again lead a crew of four, with his longtime colleague Scott Poteet serving as pilot and Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, two SpaceX employees, serving as the flight's medical officer and mission specialist, respectively.
The multi-day journey has no specific destination in mind, but is a free-flight mission in which the crew will orbit what they hope will be far from Earth.
“We are reaching heights that humans have not reached in over 50 years,” Isaacman said.
The Polaris Dawn crew, from left: Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis.
SpaceX
The heart of Polaris Dawn, however, is the planned spacewalk.
Extravehicular activities (EVAs) have been a staple of NASA's astronaut missions for years, for example when the agency has to perform maintenance work outside the International Space Station. But never before has a private company attempted such an EVA.
Isaacman said he realized he and his crew would be “surrounded by death” during a spacewalk, a moment they had trained intensively for.
“The only thing that comes close to that is a vacuum chamber. That's the closest you get to a vacuum or to space. … You definitely get a real feel for pressure and temperature changes and also experience the psychological stresses of being in a very harsh environment,” Isaacman said.
Five-day mission plan
The Polaris Dawn mission crew, from left: Medic Anna Menon, Pilot Scott Poteet, Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis.
Polaris Program / John Kraus
Isaacman also explained the daily schedule of Polaris Dawn, which will spend up to five days in space.
The first day will be about finding a time when the risk from micrometeorites in orbit is minimal. This will determine the exact launch time of Polaris Dawn. After reaching an orbit of 190 by 1,200 kilometers, the crew will conduct a comprehensive check of the resilience of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, according to Isaacman.
“It's really important to know that the vehicle has no defects before it climbs to an altitude of 1,400 kilometers,” Isaacman said.
The spacecraft will also fly through an early zone of high radiation known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.
“Ideally, you want to do this at the lowest altitude possible, because even at 200 kilometers, the radiation is much higher there… Our two or three high-altitude passes through the South Atlantic Anomaly will account for almost the entire radiation exposure of the mission and will be equivalent to about three months on the International Space Station,” Isaacman said.
The second day will focus on some of the science and research that Polaris Dawn plans to conduct – there will be about 40 experiments in total. The crew will also prepare for the spacewalk and test the EVA suits.
“This will allow us to ensure that there are no unexpected differences in microgravity compared to what we were able to test on Earth,” Isaacman said.
Day three is the big day: EVA.
The spacewalk
So which crew member will perform the spacewalk?
“We would say we do it all four of us. There is no airlock and a vacuum is created inside the spacecraft,” Isaacman said.
Two crew members will travel outside Dragon: Isaacman and Gillis, while Poteet and Menon will remain inside for support.
The EVA is expected to last two hours from start to finish. Isaacman emphasized that the spacewalk is “really a test and development process.”
“We want to learn as much as possible about the suit and how it works, but we only have a limited amount of oxygen and nitrogen,” Isaacman said.
Polaris Dawn plans to broadcast the spacewalk live, and the mission commander stressed that there will be “a lot of cameras” inside and outside the capsule.
Brand new spacesuits
A SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suit during a test on June 24, 2024.
John Kraus / Polaris Program
The crucial piece of equipment that will make EVA possible are SpaceX’s spacesuits.
The company has spent the past few years using its minimalist-looking black-and-white IVA suit – which stands for intravehicular activity and is worn by astronauts in emergency situations – to develop its EVA suit. Isaacman said the EVA suits are the result of hundreds of hours of testing different materials over the years.
“Our main goal is to learn as much as possible about the suit,” Isaacman said.
“It's all about building the next generation. We're continuing to work on this suit design so that SpaceX can one day have hundreds or thousands of people working on the Moon, Mars and working in [low Earth orbit]whatever. Building a new EVA suit is no easy task,” he added.
Anna Menon, medical specialist for Polaris Dawn, testing the spacesuit.
John Kraus / Polaris Program
Polaris Dawn aims to push the boundaries of private space travel, and Isaacman hopes the mission, like his first flight into orbit, will provide inspiration.
“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.'”
Read Isaacman’s questions and answers in CNBC’s “Investing in Space” newsletter here.
Comments are closed.