Almost everything is ready for the launch of the mission Polaris Dawn Of SpaceXwhere the will be reached maximum distance from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon and will be carried out first private extravehicular activity in history, scheduled for tomorrow Friday August 30, 2024 from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which had already been postponed twice in recent days, initially to Tuesday 28 August due to a helium leak and subsequently to Friday due to adverse weather conditions.
Polaris Dawn is the first of two missions that make up the program Polarisannounced in February 2022 by the billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX. The mission will last all 5 days and it will be full of firsts, the most important of which will be to achieve the first commercial “spacewalk” of history, thanks to specific space suits designed by SpaceX itself. During the 5 days of stay in space the crew members will conduct 36 experimentsincluding research on the effect of radiation on biological tissues within the Van Allen belts of the Earth.
The crew will be private and composed of 4 members2 women and 2 men: the entrepreneur and aviator Jared IsaacmanAir Force lieutenant colonel Scott Potet and the two mission specialists Sarah Gillis And Anna Menonrespectively in the roles of astronaut training program expert and former NASA biomedical flight controller. The crew will reach the remarkable quota of 1400 kilometers from the Earth’s surface, just over three times that of the International Space Station: it will be the highest altitude reached by any human in the last 50 years, the highest of any human mission in Earth orbit in history.
Where to watch the Polaris Dawn launch
The launch of the Polaris Dawn mission was initially scheduled for the morning of Monday, August 26, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The date has so far been postponed three times: the first due to additional pre-departure checks by SpaceX, the second due to a helium leak, and the third due to adverse weather conditions expected for the day of the capsule’s return, which should splash down off the coast of Florida. The launch is currently scheduled for Friday August 30thbut the exact time is still subject to change due to weather. The launch will still be visible through the SpaceX YouTube Channels.
What are the objectives of the mission?
The Polaris Dawn mission represents an important Test and development program of new technologies for space flight. The mission will make use of the Falcon 9 and of the Dragon capsule by SpaceX to achieve several major milestones for commercial spaceflight.
The main course of the mission, which lasted a total of 5 days, is certainly the first extra-vehicular activity (commonly referred to as a spacewalk) deprived of history. Added to this record is the fact that the extra-vehicular activity (EVA) will take place while the capsule is in a highly elliptical orbit, which at its apogee (the furthest point from the Earth’s surface) will reach 700 kilometers of altitude from the Earth’s surface. The crew will perform the EVA inside new suits specifically designed by SpaceXwith the goal of conducting a series of tests that will provide the data SpaceX needs to produce and retrofit suits for future long-duration missions.
Another record that will be set by the Polaris Dawn mission is that of flying higher than any Dragon capsule launched to date, reaching an altitude of 1400 kilometers from the Earth’s surface, about three times the altitude of the ISS. This is the point highest achieved by a human mission in the last 50 years and the highest ever for an Earth-orbiting mission. During the capsule’s elliptical orbit, astronauts will fly through portions of the Van Allen radiation belts, belts of ionizing radiation that surround Earth.
Two other important objectives of the mission will be test satellite communication laser based using optical links between the Dragon spaceship and the satellites Starlinkand lead 36 science experiments designed to advance our knowledge of human health both on Earth and during future long-duration spaceflight.
Who are the Polaris Dawn crew members?
The Polaris Dawn mission crew consists of 4 memberstwo women and two men. The mission commander is Jared Isaacman, creator with SpaceX of the Polaris program itself. Jared Isaacman is an experienced pilot and astronaut with over 7,000 hours of flight experience, including the Inspiration4 mission, the world’s first all-civilian mission into space that helped raise over $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to help eradicate childhood cancer.
The pilot of the capsule will instead be Scott Potet, retired lieutenant colonel of the United States Air Force, with 20 years of experience as commander of various Air Force divisions and 3,200 flight hours on various fighter aircraft including the F-16.
The first mission specialist is Sarah GillisSpaceX’s chief space operations engineer, responsible for overseeing the company’s astronaut training program. Gillis trained NASA astronauts for the early Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions, and most recently directly trained the Inspiration 4 astronauts, the first all-civilian crew to orbit.
The second mission specialist is instead Anna Menonalso a Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, where she served in mission control as both a mission director and communications officer for the crews in orbit. Mennon spent seven years at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station. Her role will be instrumental in the experiments to investigate the effects of radiation on biological tissue in the Van Allen belts.
