SpaceX ready to launch historic Polaris Dawn mission

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SpaceX is set to launch a mission that will not only see humans travel the farthest away from Earth since Apollo 17 in 1972 but also conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk.

This is in addition to nearly 40 different science experiments and an attempt to transmit data from space through the Starlink network.

The Polaris Dawn mission, consisting of four private citizen crew members, is scheduled to lift off on a five-day mission on Aug. 27 at 3:38 AM EDT (07:38 UTC) from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There are two additional launch opportunities within the four-hour window at 5:23 AM EDT and 7:09 AM EDT.

Crew

The crew, consisting of Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Pilot Scot Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon, a mission specialist and medical officer, will fly aboard Falcon 9 in a Crew Dragon capsule.

Isaacman will be making his second flight into space, previously commanding and funding the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, which also flew on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. He is the CEO of Shift4, which works in payment processing solutions.

Isaacman and Gillis prior to launch. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)

He also enjoys aviation, clocking more than 7,000 hours in different aircraft including ex-military vehicles. He also co-founded what would become the world’s largest private air force, Draken International, to train pilots for the United States Armed Forces.

Isaacman also holds several world records including two speed-around-the-world flights in 2008 and 2009 that raised money and awareness for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Scott Poteet, callsign Kidd, served 20 years in the United States Air Force including commanding a squadron as well as flying with the Thunderbirds. In total, Poteet has more than 3,200 hours of flying to his name.

In addition to serving in various roles including Director of Business Development at Draken International and Vice President of Strategy at Shift4, he served as Mission Director of Inspiration4. He is also an accomplished triathlete, completing 15 Ironman triathlons since 2000 including four World Championships.

Sarah Gillis, callsign Cooper, is a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX and a mission specialist for this flight. She is no stranger to the astronaut training process, as she developed the mission-specific curriculum and training for Crew Dragon astronauts. That includes preparing the Demo-2 astronauts in 2020 which saw the return of human spaceflight from American soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

Gillis also directly trained the Inspiration4 crew ahead of their flight. She has also spent time in mission control, including acting as Navigation Officer for Dragon cargo resupply vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS) as well as the Crew Operations and Resources Engineer (CORE) for crewed flights, acting as the relay between ground controllers and the crew in space.

Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Sarah is an avid hiker, climber, and adventurer who first studied classical violin before switching to aerospace.

Anna Menon (left) and Scott Poteet (right) at the Launch and Landing Facility prior to launch. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)

Anna “Walker” Menon is a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX where she manages the development of crew operations. Not only has she acted as CORE for other crew missions, but she also helped create the role, the SpaceX equivalent of NASA’s capsule communicator (CAPCOM) position.

Menon served in mission control during multiple Dragon missions, such as Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, CRS-23, Crew-3, Crew-4, and Axiom-1.

Before joining SpaceX, Menon worked at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the ISS, supporting space station crews from the ground as they completed different health-based experiments. She led the planning and execution of all biomedical operations for the Expedition 47/48 mission.

She has volunteered with Engineers Without Borders and Engineering World Health. Her dream of flying to space began in fourth grade when her teacher Alison Smith Balch, the daughter of Space Shuttle Challenger pilot Michael Smith, took her on a field trip at NASA.

She also enjoys hiking, flying small airplanes, and salsa dancing.

Vehicles

The crew will spend five days aboard C207, also known as Resilience. The vehicle first flew the Crew-1 mission in 2020. It was then used again for the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, which was also commanded by Isaacman. The mission included the four-person crew performing experiments and viewing the Earth through a specially created Cupola module.

Crew Dragon Resilience arrives at LC-39A to be mated with Falcon 9. (Credit: SpaceX)

Like Inspiration4, Polaris Dawn will be using the flight to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The goal is to find cures for cancer and other serious diseases affecting children. In addition, any children and their parents staying at the hospital do not have to pay so they can focus on healing.

Inspiration4 raised more than $240 million for the charity.

Unlike Inspiration4, Resilience will not have the cupola installed. That will instead be replaced by a forward-facing hatch which will be used during extravehicular activities (EVA) or spacewalks.

The Falcon 9 booster launching the crew into space is B1083-4. This will be its second time launching crew, previously sending the Crew-8 astronauts to the ISS where they remain currently. The booster was also used for Starlink Group 6-48 and 6-56.

Before going vertical at the launch pad, the crew signed their names and marked their mission in the soot the booster acquired from its previous flights.

Launch

The mission will launch into an initial 190 by 1,200-km orbit, inclined 51.6 degrees. The launch time and low periapsis, according to Isaacman, were designed to reduce the risk of micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) impacting the vehicle.

The first stage booster, completing its portion of the flight, will attempt to land on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas located northeast of the launch site. If successful, it will mark the 269th consecutive successful landing of a booster, which will be returned to Port Canaveral to fly on another mission.

Following orbital insertion, the crew will perform systems checks and pass through an area of high radiation known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Dragon will then raise its apogee to 1,400 km, breaking the crew altitude record set by Gemini 11 in 1966 of 1,369 km. It also marks the farthest humans have been from the Earth since the Apollo program. This will also mean Gillis and Menon will set the record for the farthest distance traveled away from the planet by a woman.

After approximately 10 hours, Resilience will then be lowered to a 190 by 700 km orbit, where it will remain for the rest of the mission, averaging an orbital period of 106 minutes.

Mission objectives

The main reason for the 10 hours in that higher orbit is research.

“It is a different radiation environment, it is a different micrometeorite orbital debris environment, and we stand to learn quite a bit from that in terms of human health, science, and research,” Isaacman said at a media event before the flight. “If we get to Mars someday, we’d love to be able to come back and be healthy enough to tell people about it so I think that it’s worthwhile to get some exposure in that environment.”

Isaacman also noted that it would be a good test of the spacecraft, as radiation has been an issue for vehicle and space station designers for decades. The goal is to collect all radiation data in as short of a period as possible before retreating to the lower orbit.

Smart contact lenses with tiny micro-sensors that continuously measure pressure inside the eye that will be worn by the Polaris Dawn crew. (Credit: Polaris Program/John Kraus)

Throughout the mission, the crew will conduct 36 experiments from 31 partner institutions. Those include radiation-exposure experiments, as well as using ultrasound to monitor and detect venous gas emboli, which will help study the human prevalence of decompression sickness.

There will also be multiple studies involving the eye, including a key risk to human health while off the planet known as Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome. One experiment from the University of Colorado Boulder will use smart contact lenses that crewmembers will wear to help take measurements to understand the syndrome.

The second major objective of the mission is to complete the first commercial spacewalk in history. While only two astronauts will leave the capsule, all four will be wearing specialized EVA suits.

An upgrade from the usual launch and entry suits seen on previous Crew Dragon missions, these include a heads-up display, a helmet camera, and an entirely new architecture for joint mobility. Thermal insulation was added throughout the suit, including a copper and indium tin oxide visor that both provides thermal protection and solar protection.

That’s the same type of coating that was applied to the cupola during Inspiration4. The thermal insulation is also derived from materials already used on SpaceX vehicles.

The Polaris Dawn crew wear their EVA suits during a training exercise. (Credit: SpaceX)

Modifications were also made to the capsule to accommodate the spacewalk. More oxygen will be carried up with the crew as there is no airlock aboard Resilience. As a result, the entire capsule will be depressurized ahead of the EVA requiring the spacecraft to provide oxygen to all crew members for the full duration of the event.

That oxygen supply is required until the cabin is repressurized, which will happen with the help of a newly added nitrogen repressurization system.

The crew will start preparing for the spacewalk just one hour into the flight. That’s when the astronauts will begin a pre-breathing protocol to prepare their bodies for the oxygen-rich environment used once the cabin is depressurized. This will see the pressure inside drop from 14.5 psi (99.9 kPa), very close to what we experience on Earth, slowly working its way toward 8.7 psi (59.6 kPa) before the spacewalk. The goal is to remove nitrogen from the body and prevent decompression sickness, also known as the bends.

Once in their suits, they will be pressurized to just 5.1 psi (35.1 kPa).

At the same time, the mixture of oxygen in the environment will vary starting at 20 percent leading up to the 100 percent they will be breathing during the spacewalk.

On flight day two, the crew will pressurize the suits and go through a mobility demonstration inside the spacecraft to verify everything they tested on the ground works in space.

On flight day three, the crew will suit up and pressurize their wearable lifeboats, completing a pre-breathe on 100 percent oxygen inside their suits before the air is vented out of the spacecraft.

Then Isaacman and Gillis will prepare to make history.

Once at vacuum, the first spacewalker, EV1, will open the hatch and float out near the nosecone of Resilience.

While attached to a tether, the astronaut will complete a test matrix of different suit mobility objectives before returning inside the spacecraft 15-20 minutes later. This includes testing specially designed hand and foot holds that the crew will use to attempt to maneuver. Unlike the Gemini program, the astronauts will not do any free-floating but will remain close to the craft, Isaacman said.

Once back inside, EV2 will then exit and perform their experiments, also spending 15-20 minutes in the vacuum of space.

Once completed, EV2 will close the hatch and the crew will begin the process of repressurizing the spacecraft, allowing them to doff, or take off, their suits.

Hand and foot rails that will assist in the Polaris Dawn spacewalk. (Credit: Polaris Program)

The entire process is expected to take approximately two hours.

Day four will consist of a special Starlink demonstration. This mission will mark the first Crew Dragon mission to utilize SpaceX’s network of Starlink internet satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit. The test will specifically use the Starlink laser link.

Using beams of light, it will attempt to pass communications through the Starlink network as opposed to a more traditional ground system such as the Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) used by NASA to communicate with spacecraft in Earth orbit.

The crew will have a Wi-Fi router inside the vehicle that is connected to the laser system, which they’re calling the “plug-in laser.” The crew teased a special Starlink-related event featuring a special message to share with the world but wouldn’t disclose any other details other than encouraging people to stay tuned.

A Starlink Wi-Fi router located inside Crew Dragon which will test using Starlink laser links to send and receive data. (Credit: Polaris Program)

On flight day five, the crew will return to Earth, either splashing down off Florida’s west coast in the Gulf of Mexico or east coast in the Atlantic Ocean. There are multiple different landing sites, and a decision will be made on which to use based on weather conditions and wave heights.

Once they return, one of SpaceX’s two recovery vessels, Shannon or Megan, will recover the capsule and hoist it onboard, allowing the crew to breathe fresh air for the first time since liftoff.

Polaris Program

This is the first of three planned missions as part of the Polaris Program. According to Isaacman, the second flight will build upon the lessons learned during this mission. The third flight is expected to take place aboard a Starship vehicle, SpaceX’s super heavy launch vehicle currently under development in Texas.

The program claims that the third mission will be the first human flight aboard the fully reusable vehicle.

No date or crew assignment has been announced for the second or third mission.

(Lead image: The crew of Polaris Dawn stands in front of their Dragon capsule Resilience. Credit: SpaceX)

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