September 10, 2024
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Polaris Dawn Astronauts set off on bold private mission
Polaris DawnAstronauts will travel farther from Earth than anyone has done since the early 1970s and attempt the world’s first private spacewalk.
The four-person Polaris Dawn mission launched early this morning (September 10th) hoping to make spaceflight history.
Aiming to be the first-ever private spacewalk, Polaris Dawn lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 5:23 a.m. EDT (9:23 a.m. GMT) from NASA’s historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the same site as the majority of NASA’s Apollo lunar launches, and this was the final crewed mission to fly Polaris Dawn astronauts.
The rocket’s nine Merlin engines roared off from the launch pad, shining a brilliant light over the calm waters around Kennedy Space Center, then rose into the sky until their glow disappeared into the sky as just another twinkling dot among the stars.
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The launch was originally scheduled to take place on August 26, but SpaceX canceled that attempt to conduct further pre-flight checks. An attempt the following day was halted after the mission team discovered a helium leak in the equipment supporting the Falcon 9. The launch was subsequently postponed multiple times due to bad weather, but today Mother Nature finally relented.
Two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff, the Falcon 9’s main engines shut down and the booster separated from the second stage as scheduled. The booster then performed a series of burns to align itself on a return trajectory to the orbit of SpaceX’s autonomous unmanned ship, Just Read the Instructions, which was anchored in the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket landed on the barge about 9.5 minutes after liftoff. Off the east coast of Florida.
Polaris Dawn’s Crew Dragon spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage just over 12 minutes after liftoff.
“We couldn’t have done this journey without the 14,000 people back home and all the people cheering us on,” Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur who is directing and funding Polaris Dawn, said at SpaceX’s Mission Control center shortly after Crew Dragon was put into orbit. “We’re grateful, and now we’re going to get to work.”
The capsule settled into an elliptical orbit with a maximum altitude (apogee) of about 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) and a minimum altitude (perigee) of about 118 miles (190 kilometers). After several orbits, Crew Dragon will raise its apogee to about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than any human has flown since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
Isaacman has been to space once before, and in September 2021 he funded and led SpaceX’s Inspiration 4 mission, which donated $250 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and he hopes this mission will build on that momentum.
Polaris Dawn will carry the first two SpaceX employees to launch into orbit, mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, and mission pilot, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Kidd-Poteet. The four will spend the next five days in space conducting dozens of experiments in the new space environment the mission will explore.
After Polaris Dawn’s second day in space, Dragon will lower its apogee to about 435 miles (700 km) and remain there until it completes its deorbit burn and returns to Earth, where the Polaris Dawn crew will perform the most important part of the mission: the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
The EVA (Extravehicular Activity) will take place on the third day of the mission, and its main purpose is to test SpaceX’s new EVA spacesuit, which looks similar to the company’s familiar black-and-white IVA (Intravehicular Activity) suits that are only worn inside the spacecraft.
Crew Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, so the entire capsule’s interior is exposed to the vacuum of space during spacewalks, so although all four Polaris Dawn crew members will wear spacesuits during spacewalks, only Isaacman and Gillis will be outside the spacecraft.
The two astronauts will take turns exiting the Crew Dragon to test the functionality and maneuverability of their spacesuits. The Polaris Dawn spacewalk will last about two hours in total, from the start of Crew Dragon depressurization until the hatch is closed and the cabin is repressurized.
A Starlink demonstration was scheduled for the fourth day of the mission, during which the Polaris Dawn crew previewed an exciting surprise message they plan to send to Earth via SpaceX’s giant constellation of internet satellites.
Polaris Dawn’s fifth day will be spent preparing for return home, assuming all other mission objectives have been accomplished at this point. (The crew will also conduct about 40 science experiments during the mission.)
Polaris Dawn’s Dragon is scheduled to splash down six days after launch and perform a final series of deorbit burns on its way back to Earth. If all goes as planned, Polaris Dawn’s crew will parachute into one of several potential landing sites off the coast of Florida, where a recovery ship will retrieve the spacecraft and crew.
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