On Tuesday, a team of four private astronauts embarked on a daring SpaceX mission, marking a significant milestone in space exploration. The mission aims to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk, utilizing SpaceX’s newly designed spacesuits and an upgraded spacecraft. This venture represents a bold step forward for private space missions, with the astronauts set to test the capabilities of SpaceX’s cutting-edge technology in a high-risk, unprecedented walk beyond their spacecraft. The mission is being bankrolled by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who is mission commander
- He is joined by Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force pilot, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon
- Previously, only government-funded astronauts have carried out spacewalks
- There was a four-hour launch window in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday morning
- SpaceX pushed the Falcon 9 launch to 9:23 GMT after bad weather delayed an earlier attempt.
A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot, and two SpaceX employees successfully launched into space at 9:23 GMT on Tuesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Crew Dragon capsule. This marks SpaceX’s fifth—and most daring—private space mission to date.
The mission, originally set to launch last month, was delayed due to a minor helium leak in ground equipment at SpaceX’s launchpad. Though the issue was quickly resolved, the Falcon 9 rocket was further grounded by U.S. regulators following a booster recovery failure during an unrelated mission.
After receiving clearance to resume Falcon 9 operations, the highly anticipated Polaris mission was successfully launched on Tuesday.
“Crew safety is absolutely paramount and this mission carries more risk than usual, as it will be the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since Apollo and the first commercial spacewalk!,” Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, wrote about the mission last month on his social media site X.
Only highly trained, government-funded astronauts have undertaken spacewalks, with about 270 spacewalks conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) since 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on the Tiangong station. Now, SpaceX is aiming to change that with its Polaris Dawn mission, which seeks to make history by performing the first private spacewalk.
The Polaris Dawn mission, set to last five days, will see the Crew Dragon spacecraft orbit Earth in an elliptical path ranging from 190 km (118 miles) to 1,400 km (870 miles) away from the planet, marking the farthest humans have ventured since NASA’s Apollo missions in the 1970s. The spacewalk is scheduled for the third day at 700 km in altitude and will last approximately 20 minutes.
Unlike the ISS, the Crew Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, so the entire cabin will be depressurized, and all four astronauts will depend on SpaceX’s slimmed-down spacesuits for oxygen. Jared Isaacman, the 41-year-old billionaire behind the Polaris program and founder of Shift4, is funding the mission. Isaacman, who also financed the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, has not disclosed the exact cost but estimates suggest hundreds of millions of dollars.
Isaacman will be joined by retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel Scott Poteet as the mission’s pilot, alongside SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. Isaacman and Gillis will carry out the spacewalk tethered by oxygen lines, while Poteet and Menon will remain inside the spacecraft.
This mission is part of Isaacman’s Polaris program, which includes a second Crew Dragon flight and a future mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship, the massive rocket that is being developed as SpaceX’s flagship for lunar and Mars exploration.
In addition to the spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew will serve as test subjects for various experiments on how cosmic radiation and the vacuum of space affect the human body, adding to existing research from ISS astronauts.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has been NASA’s primary crew-grade vehicle since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, having flown nine missions to the ISS. While Boeing is developing a competing spacecraft, the Starliner, it has faced multiple challenges, with its most recent NASA mission delayed due to propulsion issues.
SOURCE: Reuters
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