A four-person crew for SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission arrived in Florida on Monday, preparing for their August 26 launch to space. This mission includes the first privately managed spacewalk, a venture previously undertaken only by government astronauts. The crew, comprising a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot, and two SpaceX employees, is nearing the completion of over two years of training. They will conduct a tethered spacewalk outside their Crew Dragon capsule in Earth's orbit.
This mission represents a significant test of SpaceX's new astronaut spacesuits and marks another high-stakes commercial milestone for Elon Musk's company. The goal is to pave the way for future colonies on Mars. Mission commander Jared Isaacman, CEO of electronic payment company Shift4 and head of the SpaceX-affiliated Polaris program, stated, "Whatever risk associated with it, it is worth it. We have no idea what it could do to really change the trajectory of humankind... there has to be some first steps in this direction." Isaacman is funding the mission and others under his Polaris program, though he declined to disclose the total amount invested, which is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The financial investment in SpaceX's new spacesuits was shared between the Polaris team and SpaceX, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice-president. The launch is scheduled for 3:38 am ET on August 26 from SpaceX's launchpad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission is set to last six days, with the spacewalk, known as Extravehicular Activity (EVA), planned for the third day. The crew includes mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who was also on the Inspiration4 mission, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both lead space operations engineers, who will serve as mission specialists.
Crew Dragon lacks an airlock, so the entire cabin will be depressurized before the spacewalk, requiring all four astronauts to test the new spacesuits. However, only Isaacman and Gillis will venture outside the spacecraft. Only government astronauts from the US, former Soviet Union, Russia, the European Space Agency, Canada, and China have conducted spacewalks. Since the International Space Station's inception in 2000, over 270 spacewalks have been conducted using American and Russian spacesuits.
Bill Gerstenmaier, who was NASA's human spaceflight chief until 2020, emphasized, "EVA is a risky adventure. But again, we did all the work to really get ready for this. We kind of built off of what NASA's heritage was, but I think we've also extended NASA's heritage a little bit further." While SpaceX uses its Crew Dragon capsule to transport astronauts to and from the ISS for NASA, the company aims to achieve new milestones with each privately funded spaceflight. The first mission led by Isaacman, Inspiration4 in 2021, was the first all-civilian, privately funded flight into Earth's orbit. SpaceX recently announced plans to launch the first crew to orbit the Earth pole-to-pole, featuring a multinational crew, next year.
