The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission launched early Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Washington:
After going deeper into space than any human over the past half century, a pioneering private crew will make history Thursday with the first-ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, launched early Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and reached a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers).
That’s more than three times higher than the International Space Station, in a region of space called the inner Van Allen radiation belt – a zone full of dangerous, high-energy particles.
Now that the elliptical orbit of their Dragon spacecraft has been reduced to a low of about 200 kilometers and a maximum of 700 kilometers, the four-man crew is preparing for the centerpiece of the mission: a daring extravehicular activity (EVA), scheduled for Thursday 09.58 hour GMT. with a backup window on Friday.
SpaceX moved the time back a few hours early on Thursday, without explaining why. It is scheduling a webcast of the event, starting about an hour in advance, on its website.
‘A dance’
Before opening the hatch, the crew will complete a “pre-breathe” process to remove nitrogen from their blood, preventing decompression sickness caused by nitrogen bubbles. The cabin pressure is then gradually reduced so that it corresponds to the room pressure.
After it opens, Isaacman and crew member Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, will take turns peeking out from a structure attached to the hatch called “Skywalker,” equipped with hand and foot rests.
“It’ll look like we’re doing a little dance,” Isaacman joked during a recent press conference.
In reality, they are testing SpaceX’s next generation suits, which feature heads-up displays, helmet cameras and enhanced joint mobility systems.
However, they won’t float away on a tether like early space explorers like Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov or NASA’s Ed White in 1965. Instead, they will cling to the spacecraft as it orbits the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour .
Because the Crew Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, the entire crew will be exposed to the vacuum of space for the duration of the spacewalk, approximately two hours. After the hatch is closed, the cabin is repressurized and oxygen and nitrogen levels return to normal.
Mission pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will monitor vital support systems during the activity, while Isaacman and Gillis are each expected to spend about 15 to 20 minutes partially outside the spacecraft.
“The risk is greater than zero, that’s for sure, and it’s certainly greater than anything that has been achieved on a commercial basis,” former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe told AFP.
“This is another turning point in the march toward the commercialization of space for transportation,” he added, likening the crew members to early pilots who paved the way for modern air travel.
First of three Polaris missions
All four underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the historic mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators, as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, diving and climbing an Ecuadorian volcano.
In addition to their spacewalk, the crew will test laser-based satellite communications between the spacecraft and the massive Starlink satellite constellation.
They will also conduct 36 scientific experiments, including tests on contact lenses with built-in microelectronics to monitor changes in eye pressure and shape in space.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX.
The financial terms of the partnership remain secret, but Isaacman, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4Payments, has reportedly poured $200 million of his fortune into leading the 2021 all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission.
The latest Polaris mission aims to be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a next-generation rocket prototype crucial to founder Elon Musk’s ambitions to colonize Mars.
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