14.02.2022
Billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman buys more private SpaceX flights, including one on Starship
he Polaris Dawn mission patch depicts a spacewalking astronaut outside of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft as reflected in the spacesuit visor of another crew member. (Polaris Program/John Kraus)
- Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments company Shift4, has purchased as many as three more flights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX for what is known as the Polaris Program.
- The first mission, called Polaris Dawn, is scheduled to launch a four-person crew led by Isaacman in the fourth quarter with the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft.
- Polaris Dawn is the inaugural of up to three planned missions, with the final one to be the first crewed spaceflight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments company Shift4 who flew on the first private SpaceX flight to orbit last year, has purchased as many as three more flights from Elon Musk’s company.
The first mission in the so-called Polaris Program is set to launch a four-person crew led by Isaacman in the fourth quarter with the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. According to the program’s website, the augural flight, Polaris Dawn, will be the first of up to three missions, with the final one to be the first crewed spaceflight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
“The Polaris Program is an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through the use of innovative technology here on Earth,” Isaacman said in a statement.
Financial terms of the billionaire’s purchase from SpaceX were not disclosed.
Isaacman was among those who were at Musk’s Starship presentation last week at the company’s facility in Texas. SpaceX has booked a private Starship flight to the moon for Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and Musk on Thursday alluded that more such spaceflights were in the works but didn’t offer any specific details.
The Polaris Dawn mission will spend up to five days in orbit and is looking to achieve such goals as the first private-company spacewalk with SpaceX spacesuits, testing of Starlink satellite communications in space and conducting scientific research on human health.
Notably, Polaris Dawn marks the start of SpaceX’s own astronaut corps. Isaacman, the mission’s commander, will be joined by longtime colleague Scott Poteet as the pilot. Two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, the company’s lead space operations engineers, round out the crew. Gillis oversees the astronaut-training program and Menon manages the development of its crew operations.
Isaacman led the historic Inspiration4 mission in September, which spent three days in orbit in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule with a crew of four. The primary goal of Inspiration4 was to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; it surpassed that goal and donated over $240 million to the charity. Like Inspiration4, the Polaris missions will “raise funds and awareness” for St. Jude, according to the program’s website.
The program is also collaborating with multiple organizations, including the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder, Space Technologies Lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Quelle: CNBC
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Billionaire's 'Polaris Program' to fly feats on SpaceX Dragon, Starship
The billionaire commander of the first "all-civilian" space mission has now filed a new flight plan, underwriting a series of three SpaceX launches designed to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities while also raising funds and awareness for causes here on Earth.
he Polaris Dawn mission patch depicts a spacewalking astronaut outside of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft as reflected in the spacesuit visor of another crew member. (Polaris Program/John Kraus)
Jared Isaacman, the 39-year-old founder of Shift4, an online payment processing company, and the commander of last year's Inspiration4 mission, revealed his "Polaris Program" on Monday (Feb. 14), a trio of commercial spaceflights to begin on SpaceX's existing Dragon spacecraft as soon as November or December of this year and culminate in the first crewed launch of SpaceX's new Starship in the years to come.
"The Polaris Program is the next chapter in our journey to make humanity become a truly spacefaring civilization," Isaacman said in a call with reporters on Monday.
The program's first launch, titled "Polaris Dawn," will launch Isaacman as the mission's commander, together with three crewmates, including: pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who served as the mission director for Inspiration4; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, who oversees SpaceX's astronaut training program; and medical officer Anna Menon, who manages the development of SpaceX's crew operations and serves in the company's mission control. (Menon is married to Anil Menon, a member of NASA's latest astronaut candidate class, meaning she will now be flying into space before her husband.)
Polaris Dawn
The Polaris Dawn crew will expand upon the achievements of the record-setting Inspiration4 mission. In September 2021, Isaacman and his three Inspiration4 crewmates (Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski) spent three days aboard a Dragon spacecraft in Earth orbit, reaching a maximum altitude of 364 miles (565 km) — the fifth-highest orbital human spaceflight in history.
"On Polaris Dawn, we endeavor to achieve the highest Earth orbit ever flown," Isaacman said.
That record is currently set at 853 miles (1,373 km), as achieved by NASA's Gemini 11 astronauts, Charles "Pete" Conrad and Richard "Dick" Gordon, in 1966. Apollo crew members, including Conrad and Gordon, later flew farther from Earth on missions to the moon, but the Gemini 11 record continues to stand today as the highest Earth orbit reached by astronauts.
"Ultimately, it will really come down to vehicle performance and what we're able to accomplish while ensuring that we have a path to come home safely," said Gillis.
At its peak altitudes, the Polaris Dawn mission will pass through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt — the donut-shaped swaths of magnetically-trapped, highly-energetic charged particles that surround Earth — providing the crew the opportunity to collect data on the effects of space radiation exposure on human health as among the mission's science research objectives.
The first commercial spacewalk is planned for the first mission of billionaire Jared Isaacman's newly-announced "Polaris Program," dubbed "Polaris Dawn," to be launched with a crew of four as soon as November or December 2022. (Polaris Program)
Lower in their orbit, at approximately 300 miles (500 km) above Earth, at least two of the Polaris Dawn crew members will attempt the first commercial extravehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk. SpaceX's Dragon does not include an airlock, so the entire cabin will be depressurized before the hatch is opened. For the EVA, the crew will wear new SpaceX-designed spacesuits, upgraded from the company's existing pressure suits.
"The development of these suits and the execution of the EVA will be important steps toward the scalable design for spacesuits for future long duration missions," Isaacman said.
Guiding light
The new spacesuits, along with a planned first test of SpaceX's Starlink satellite network for laser-based communications in space, are intended to advance the technologies needed for future missions to the moon, Mars and into deep space. Like its namesake Polaris, which is a constellation of three stars more commonly known as the "North Star," the Polaris Program seeks to be a guiding light, helping humanity navigate its way to new destinations.
The second Polaris mission will follow based on what the crew and SpaceX learn during the first mission.
"We're going to learn as much as we can from the Polaris Program side of things, SpaceX is going to learn an awful lot as they're getting Starship ready for its first human spaceflight and I think we're going to combine that to ultimately form what the second mission should look like," Isaacman said.
The third launch will be the first human spaceflight of SpaceX's Starship, a heavy-lift rocket and spacecraft that is being developed as the world's first fully-reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo into Earth orbit, to the moon, Mars and elsewhere further out into the solar system. The date for that mission is unknown, but will come after the vehicle has been tested on numerous uncrewed flights.
Like the Inspiration4 mission, which through contests, auctions, sales and donations raised a total of $240 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the Polaris Program also seeks to benefit the hospital's programs to to improve the global survival rates for childhood cancer.
"I'm incredibly passionate that we can make meaningful progress towards a world we all want to live in for tomorrow, while also working to address the challenges and hardships of today. It does not have to be one or the other, but in fact can be both," said Isaacman.
Quelle: CS
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Update: 16.02.2022
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Jared Isaacman orders three more SpaceX launches, including first crewed Starship
The billionaire entrepreneur who flew SpaceX's first all-civilian mission to orbit last year has commissioned the company for three more missions, including the first crewed flight of Starship.
Jared Isaacman is working with SpaceX on the Polaris Program, named after the North Star, that more or less operates as a private crewed spaceflight program. Polaris' first two missions are slated to fly on Crew Dragon capsules starting late this year followed by a third on Starship, the SpaceX vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and Mars.
Included in the program so far are Isaacman (commander) and three astronauts-to-be: Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both engineers at SpaceX; and Scott Poteet, a former Air Force pilot and mission director for Isaacman's Inspiration4 mission last September. Gillis and Menon join as mission specialists and Poteet as a pilot.
The first mission, set to launch from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year, is Polaris Dawn: a Falcon 9 rocket will boost the crew of four to push the altitude limits of Crew Dragon, conduct the first ever commercial spacewalk, work on health and science experiments, and test SpaceX's Starlink internet network's ability to relay communications.
"The Polaris Program is an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through the use of innovative technology here on Earth," Isaacman said in a Monday release. "On Polaris Dawn, we endeavor to achieve the highest Earth orbit ever flown in addition to conducting the world’s first commercial spacewalk and testing of Starlink laser-based communication."
Polaris Program astronauts from left to right: Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman, and Sarah Gillis.
Because it includes a spacewalk, Polaris Dawn will be the first time SpaceX demonstrates its extravehicular activity, or EVA, suit. Spacesuits are a challenging area of engineering as their complexity often rivals that of the main spacecraft itself – even NASA's own suitsfor the moon-focused Artemis program are one of the reasons behind schedule delays.
"There's a fantastic team of brilliant engineers working on this spacesuit and it'll be really exciting to work together," Menon told FLORIDA TODAY during a Monday teleconference with reporters. "As their design unfolds, we'll be certain to share more details as we get to that point."
Isaacman echoed Menon's comments and said widely available, effective EVA suits are critical to the future of spaceflight, especially as eyes turn to the moon and Mars. Testing the suits are a critical mission objective for the first Polaris mission, he said.
Because Crew Dragon doesn’t have a dedicated airlock, all four crew members will need to don their pressurized suits as air is evacuated from the capsule. It was not immediately clear which of the four would actually exit the capsule for the spacewalk.
Polaris' second mission will also fly Crew Dragon but the third will mark the first crewed flight of Starship, SpaceX's next-generation rocket being prototyped in Texas. Elon Musk sees Starship as the system that will take humans to the moon and Mars, deploy larger payloads, and bring down costs.
The Starship mission could fly from either Texas or KSC since SpaceX has plans to use both locations for the massive rocket, but details are not yet available. More on Polaris' second and third missions are expected later this year.
On a call with reporters Monday, Isaacman said the program is fully funded thanks to contributions from himself and SpaceX. Costs and other financial details were not released.
In September, Isaacman and three others – Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski – launched from KSC on Inspiration4, the first mission crewed entirely by non-professional astronauts. It raised more than $240 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Polaris will continue the focus on St. Jude through awareness and fundraising campaigns.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of Shift4, a publicly-traded payments processing company he founded when he was 18.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 22.02.2022
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The science experiments to expect from SpaceX's Polaris Dawn
SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft above Earth in 2021. Credit: SpaceX
The next private SpaceX flight will conduct novel science experiments in space.
Why it matters: The research may help to answer key questions about how humans fare during long periods in space and how to protect them in a future where more people could spend more time off the Earth.
- "We want to utilize every second possible to benefit our overall goal to advance space exploration and make it accessible for all," mission pilot Scott Poteet says.
Details: Polaris Dawn, the first of three planned flights, is scheduled to launch later this year, carry billionaire Jared Isaacman, who is helping to finance the flights, and three other people to space.
- In the planned five-day flight — which would go to the radiation intense region called the Van Allen belt and potentially to an orbit farther from Earth than any since the last lunar missions — the crew will collect data about the health effects of radiation, which increases the risk of cancer and other diseases.
- They also plan to test the laser-based communication system for SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which aim to provide internet access to countries without connectivity, for use in space communication systems for lunar and Martian missions.
- SpaceX's spacesuit designed to offer protection from radiation and other space elements will also be tested during a spacewalk.
- The team is fielding an ever-growing list of proposed science experiments from other researchers. They'll be "prioritizing any experiments that have a direct benefit for human health on Earth and in space," Isaacman says.
Another experiment they are seeking approval for would study the effects of microgravity on pressure in the brain during long space flights. An increase in intracranial pressure can cause vision impairment, headaches and other effects seen in many astronauts.
- Studying what's known as spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS) could involve implanting a transducer in a crew member's brain that connects to a catheter in the spinal cord to measure fluid pressure before, during and after the mission.
What to watch: The SpaceX Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket that will be used for Polaris Dawn flew to an altitude of about 360 miles during last year's Inspiration4 mission, the first all-civilian crew mission that was also led by Isaacman.
- Isaacman indicated Polaris Dawn will go further from Earth, raising the question of whether SpaceX will need to complete additional testing before the mission, CNN's Jackie Wattle notes.
Quelle: AXIOS
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Update: 10.03.2022
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Ukrainian flag will launch on SpaceX rocket with Polaris Dawn crew this year
Inspiration4's Jared Isaacman is on the crew.
Representatives from the Polaris Program hold a Ukrainian flag that will fly into space later in 2022. (Image credit: Polaris Program/Twitter)
The all-private Polaris Dawn mission publicly shared its support for Ukraine as the nation continues to endure attacks from Russia.
The crewed Polaris Dawn, led by Inspiration4 founder and tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, will fly a Ukrainian flag to Earth orbit, mission team members announced Monday (March 7). Polaris Dawn will be the debut mission of the Polaris Program, which so far includes three flights on SpaceX vehicles.
"We stand with Ukraine and its brave citizens and all those fighting for freedom across the world. The Polaris Dawn crew will take this flag to a place in space that still remains beyond the reach of tyranny," program officials wrote in a Twitter statement.
Ukraine was invaded by Russia on Feb. 24, 2022. The U.S. government as well as international allies responded with wide-ranging sanctions on Russia. The political fallout from this war has also made it way into space. Numerous space partnerships have frayed following the unprovoked invasion and attacks, although NASA maintains that the International Space Station program, which includes both NASA and Russia's space agency Roscosmos along with other partners, is still proceeding as usual.
Isaacman, who made his fortune as the founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4, will command the Polaris Dawn mission to Earth orbit. The mission includes three other crewmembers, who are highly experienced in aviation and spaceflight operations as well: Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Polaris Dawn will fly aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, with mission goals including completing the first-ever commercial spacewalk, testing Starlinklaser-based communications in space and performing science experiments.
Isaacman then plans to fly aboard several more missions as part of the Polaris Program, which aims both to fly human spaceflight missions and to fund charitable causes on Earth. His previous venture, Inspiration4, saw four civilians fly in space for several days in September 2021 while raising hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, a cause that the Polaris Program will also support.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 12.05.2022
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SpaceX training begins this month for first commercial spacewalk mission
The four-person crew who will fly on the all-private Polaris Dawn mission — set to include the first commercial spacewalk and the debut of SpaceX’s extravehicular spacesuit — will begin training this month for their ride on a Dragon spacecraft to an altitude more than three times higher than the International Space Station.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman and pilot commanding the Polaris Dawn mission, said in a recent interview that the crew would begin training after SpaceX completed a busy stretch of crew rotations to and from the space station.
SpaceX launched a Dragon flight with four commercial astronauts to the space station April 8. That mission, flown for the Houston company Axiom Space, returned to Earth April 25. A NASA crew mission launched on a SpaceX Dragon capsule April 27 to begin a four-and-a-half month expedition on the station, followed by the return of an outgoing crew on a different Dragon spacecraft May 6.
The four-week campaign was the busiest stretch of operations for SpaceX’s human spaceflight program. Less than two years have elapsed since the company’s first crew mission for NASA.
With those missions accomplished, Isaacman tweeted Sunday that the Polaris Dawn crew will begin training later this month for their pioneering flight, which aims to reach farther from Earth than humans have flown since the last Apollo moon mission in 1972.
In an interview last month, Isaacman revealed new details about the Polaris Dawn mission, the first of three flights he has booked with SpaceX, culminating in a mission aboard the company’s huge next-generation Starship rocket. Isaacman and SpaceX announced the three-flight Polaris Program in February.
Details about the second and third Polaris missions — on a Dragon spacecraft and on SpaceX’s Starship, respectively — have not been released.
The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled for launch no earlier than November.
Isaacman will be joined on the Polaris Dawn mission by Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a veteran fighter pilot and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, will also fly to orbit on Polaris Dawn.
Gillis and Menon supported the recent Axiom and NASA crew missions as part of SpaceX’s ground team. With those jobs now complete, the four Polaris Dawn crew members are available to begin their “jammed” training schedule, Isaacman said.
SpaceX is developing a new spacesuit designed to protect crew members on spacewalks. Isaacman’s crew will be the first to test the new suit on an excursion outside the Dragon spacecraft.
The design and appearance of the suit haven’t been revealed by SpaceX. The suit is an upgrade of the custom-fitted pressure garments worn by astronauts during launch and re-entry inside the Dragon spacecraft. Those suits would pressurize to keep the crew alive in the event of an emergency.
Isaacman said there are changes in materials on the upgraded suit to better shield astronauts from micrometeoroids and orbital debris — tiny space rocks or space junk fragments that could strike a crew member while they are outside the spacecraft on a spacewalk.
The new suit will look more like SpaceX’s in-cabin pressure suits than the NASA’s older, bulky spacesuits used for excursions outside the International Space Station, Isaacman said.
“You’re adding lots of redundancies in the suit that don’t exist today, since it’s more last line of defense,” Isaacman said, referring to the differences between SpaceX’s current suit and the new extravehicular spacesuit. “You have a new visor, new seals, then mobility, joints everywhere for increased mobility and dexterity in the fingers and such. I think, visually, it will be more along the lines of what it currently looks like, but very much like a new suit.”
Isaacman said the crew will wear the new suit during launch and re-entry because there’s not enough room inside the capsule to carry the suit and change into it once in space. Two of the Polaris Dawn crew members will actually head outside for the spacewalk — also known as an EVA, or extravehicular activity.
SpaceX’s new spacesuit will be the first fresh U.S. design capable of a spacewalk since the current generation of NASA suits debuted in the 1980s, early in the space shuttle program.
NASA is in the final stages of selecting a company to develop and provide spacesuits for the agency’s Artemis missions to the moon. SpaceX’s suit may be a candidate for the contract.
The Polaris Dawn crew members know the details of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, so much of the training will focus on preparing for the spacewalk — the first EVA to be performed by non-government astronauts or cosmonauts.
Like NASA’s spacewalk training, preparations for the Polaris Dawn mission will include practice runs underwater, allowing the crew to get a feel for how the suit handles without the pull of gravity, Isaacman told Spaceflight Now last month.
SpaceX is also adding suspension rigs to the company’s training facility in Hawthorne, California.
“We can work inside the Dragon simulator and kind of practice the egress, where the mobility aids are, and such,” Isaacman said. “So it’ll be combination of Hawthorne and some actual underwater training.”
Isaacman, 39, founded Shift4 Payments, an online payment application, and has a net worth of $1.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Besides the spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew will test a laser communications system to link up with SpaceX’s Starlink internet network. The mission will also collect data on the radiation environment in the Dragon spacecraft’s orbit, which will reach into the lower segments of the Van Allen radiation belts.
Isaacman commanded the Inspiration4 mission last September, the first all-private crew mission to low Earth orbit. Isaacman and his three private citizen crewmates spent three days in orbit on SpaceX’s Dragon Resilience spacecraft, performing experiments and supporting fundraising efforts for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Like Inspiration 4, the Polaris Dawn mission will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Polaris Dawn will spend up to five days in orbit, Isaacman said.
Isaacman will likely fly again on the Dragon Resilience spacecraft, one of four crew capsules in SpaceX’s fleet.
“It’s a very high probability it will be Resilience,” he said.
SpaceX will remove the cupola viewing window added to the nose of the Dragon Resilience spacecraft for the Inspiration4 mission.
“You’re going to switch that back to basically a docking mechanism because that’s going to be going hatch for egress and ingress during the EVA,” Isaacman said.
The Polaris Dawn mission will likely target a peak altitude of about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than NASA’s Gemini 11 mission crewed by commander Pete Conrad and pilot Dick Gordon in 1966, which set the altitude record for an astronaut flight in Earth orbit at 853 miles (1,372 kilometers), according to NASA.
“There’s very little reason to go much higher than 1,400 kilometers,” Isaacman said. “You’re just dramatically increasing radiation (exposure), and you probably won’t learn a whole bunch more from it. We’re already anticpating getting a lot of really good data after just a couple of laps at a 1,400-kilometer orbit. I don’t expect to go much farther than that.”
“We’re talking about adding a lot of cameras because it’s going to be a highly elliptical orbit,” he said. “If you just assume it’s 1,400 (kilometers), it’ll be like 190-by-1400. If you can get some good footage of that and just compress it, you’re going to have the Earth shrinking and increasing in size. I think it’ll be pretty cool.”
The Dragon capsule will fire Draco thrusters to lower its altitude in before the spacewalk.
The spacecraft doesn’t have an airlock, so the spacewalk will require the entire capsule be depressurized in space. The crew members will float out of the hatch and remain tethered to the spaceship at an altitude of approximately 300 miles, or 500 kilometers, according to Polaris Program website.
“It will still be a pretty high EVA compared to anything in recent times,” Isaacman said.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 3.08.2022
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December launch planned for Polaris Dawn
The Polaris Dawn crew of (from left) Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, speak at the EAA AirVenture air show July 29. Credit: Polaris Program/John Kraus
WASHINGTON — The privately funded Polaris Program is planning its first crewed launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in December, a mission that will include the first spacewalk on a private mission.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who organized the Inspiration4 private astronaut mission that spent three days in orbit in September 2021, announced the Polaris Program in February, billing it as a series of missions to develop experience in human spaceflight. The first mission, Polaris Dawn, will fly Isaacman and three others on a five-day Crew Dragon mission.
In an appearance at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 29, Isaacman said he expected the mission to fly late this year. “We’re looking at the end of the year right now so, so likely December.”
The mission has three major goals. One is to fly Crew Dragon in an orbit with an apogee of 1,400 kilometers, the highest for a crewed mission in Earth orbit. Another is to test communications with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.
The third, and perhaps most ambitious, is a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), that will be both the first from a Crew Dragon spacecraft and the first for a private mission. “There’s a ton of new development that’s happening to support that,” said Anna Menon of SpaceX, another member of the Polaris Dawn crew.
That involves both upgrades to the life support systems on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, because the entire cabin will be depressurized for the spacewalk and repressurized afterwards, as well as development of a spacesuit. “The suit development that is occurring for this mission is really going to help us learn, and we’ll be able to build on this as we go to the moon and ultimately go to Mars,” she said.
A big focus on training for the months leading up to the launch will be on that spacewalk. “The back half of the year is pretty loaded to the EVA ops,” Isaacman said.
“This is a development program, and as part of that, this is an entirely new training program that we’re developing,” said Sarah Gillis, another SpaceX employee who is flying on the mission. “I think we’re going to learn a lot along the way.”
Menon said there are more than 35 experiments planned for the five-day mission, many focused on the elevated radiation environment of the higher orbit. “That’s something that we’re going to really need to understand for missions to the moon and to Mars.”
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions that will culminate with the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship. “To get there, we’re going to try to learn an awful lot along the way,” Isaacman said.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 23.10.2022
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SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn mission now targeting March 2023
Polaris Dawn will feature the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
The Polaris Dawn crew, from left to right: Anna Menon, Scott "Kidd" Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis.(Image credit: Polaris Program/John Kraus)
We won't see the first-ever commercial spacewalk this year after all.
SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn mission to Earth orbit has been pushed from late 2022 to no earlier than March 2023, according to the website of the Polaris Program(opens in new tab), the organization planning the flight.
Polaris Dawn will lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That's the same pad that hosted the September 2021 launch of Inspiration4, the first all-private crewed mission to Earth orbit.
The four-person Inspiration4 was funded and commanded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who will also lead Polaris Dawn. Like Inspiration4, Polaris Dawn will ride a SpaceX Dragon capsule in Earth orbit — but the coming mission will shoot a little higher.
Polaris Dawn "will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon's maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown," Polaris Program representatives wrote in a mission description(opens in new tab). "Orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, Polaris Dawn will conduct research with the aim of better understanding the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health."
The mission will also feature the first commercial spacewalk, which will be performed at an altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers), if all goes according to plan. For perspective: The International Space Station orbits an average of about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
Isaacman and his three crewmates also aim to raise money for St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, a key goal of Inspiration4 as well.
The Polaris Dawn mission, which will launch no earlier than March 2023, will feature the first-ever commercial spacewalk. (Image credit: Polaris Program)
The Polaris Program, which Isaacman funds, aims to advance human spaceflight capabilities, potentially helping our species get back to the moon and take the leap to Mars. The program also lists as a priority raising money for worthy causes and institutions such as St. Jude's.
The program will mount a total of three missions, if all goes according to plan. The second mission will also employ a Dragon, though we know little else about it; it's apparently still in the early planning stages.
Isaacman floated one intriguing possibility late last month, noting that Polaris flight two could potentially boost the orbit of, and perhaps also otherwise service, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. That mission goal is contingent on the results of a joint NASA-SpaceX study that's investigating the feasibility of a Dragon mission to Hubble.
The third Polaris flight will be the first crewed mission of SpaceX's giant Starshipvehicle, which the company is developing to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will also serve as the first crewed lander for NASA's Artemis moon program.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 24.08.2023
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Polaris Dawn mission likely to slip to 2024
WASHINGTON — The billionaire backing a series of private astronaut missions with SpaceX says the first of those flights will likely be delayed to some time in 2024.
In a recent interview with the CNBC Manifest Space podcast, Jared Isaacman said preparations were continuing for Polaris Dawn, the first of three missions of his Polaris program announced in early 2022. That mission will fly Isaacman and three others on a Crew Dragon spacecraft that will spend several days in low Earth orbit.
“We’re making a lot of progress. We’re still hoping for the end of the year, but I suspect it will probably slip into the beginning of next year,” he said in the brief interview. “This should be expected. It’s a test and development program.”
When Isaacman and SpaceX announced Polaris in February 2022, they scheduled the Polaris Dawn mission for as soon as the fourth quarter of 2022. However, by last October the launch slipped to at least March 2023, which the program attributed to readiness of the vehicle and training as well as the schedule of other Crew Dragon missions.
In a talk at a conference in February, Isaacman said he expected Polaris Dawn to launch this summer. “We’re now just months away from flying,” he said then. The program has not provided any formal schedule updates about the mission since then, with the most recent update on the program’s website published in May.
A delay beyond the end of this year would likely push Polaris Dawn later than the beginning of 2024. Axiom Space is planning its third private astronaut mission to the International Space Station in January 2024, followed as soon as a month later by NASA’s Crew-8 mission to the station, both using Crew Dragon spacecraft. While Polaris Dawn is not going to the ISS, availability of Crew Dragon spacecraft and other resources needed for crewed missions could delay Polaris Dawn to later in the year.
Isaacman, in the podcast interview, suggested the delays were linked to the development of a new spacesuit required for a spacewalk, the first by a private astronaut mission, planned for Polaris Dawn.
“We’ve had a little bit more free time this summer than we probably would have expected,” he said, which he attributed to the timing of spacesuit development and training. That effort “doesn’t always sync up, so we’ve had a little more free time with family and work this summer.”
That new suit, billed as the first new spacesuit developed in the United States in four decades, is critical to future human activities on moon and Mars, he argued. “We’re going to need spacesuits that don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars in order to do that. We’re pretty excited because the suit that we are testing out, the evolution of it someday could be very well worn by people that are walking on the moon or Mars.”
However, it’s not clear when that SpaceX-developed spacesuit would next be used. NASA awarded contracts in June 2022 to Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace for development of spacesuits to both replace those currently used on the ISS as well as for future Artemis lunar landing missions. While SpaceX’s Starship will be used for at least the Artemis 3 and 4 missions to land on the lunar surface, those missions will use spacesuits from Axiom or Collins.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions in a program that will culminate in the first crewed launch of Starship. That final mission is “pretty far out there,” Isaacman said, noting that SpaceX still had a lot of progress to make on Starship before flying people on it. “Clearly it’s going to need a lot more launches and that design is going to have to evolve to the extent that it’s going to be safe for human spaceflight.”
Since the announcement of the Polaris program, one option that has emerged for the second mission is a Crew Dragon flight to reboost the Hubble Space Telescope. Isaacman participated in a NASA briefing last September that announced an unfunded Space Act Agreement between NASA and SpaceX to study such a mission.
NASA has not disclosed the outcome of that effort, but confirmed in May that the study was complete and that the agency was “internally evaluating the findings and working to determine next steps.” The agency also received eight responses to a separate request for information from companies developing satellite servicing technologies that could reboost Hubble.
Isaacman said on the podcast that the ball was in NASA’s court about a Crew Dragon mission to Hubble. “There are obviously a lot of important things that being discussed right now at NASA, but hopefully they will get around to this proposal and perhaps we’ll have a pretty exciting Polaris 2 to follow,” he said.
At a NASA Science Mission Directorate town hall meeting July 27, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said NASA was still evaluating options for raising Hubble’s orbit. “Part of that review means looking at the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope itself and how this would work,” he said, “and make sure the telescope itself remains safe during the process.” He did not state when that review would be completed.
Quelle: SN