On Tuesday, the Polaris Dawn spacecraft launched with four civilians aboard for SpaceX’s riskiest mission to date. Billionaire Jared Isaacman, who funded the launch, is commanding the spacecraft, accompanied by pilot Scott Poteet and two SpaceX engineers: Anna Menon, medical officer, and Sarah Gillis, mission specialist.
No more delays. After being quarantined for more than two weeks, the Polaris Dawn crew faced several delays due to bad weather. This included concerns about the spacecraft’s splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
Unlike previous missions, the Crew Dragon ‘Resilience’ won’t be docking at the International Space Station (ISS). Instead, it’ll orbit the Earth freely for five days before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down off the coast of Florida.
Just in time. On Tuesday morning, SpaceX faced a delay due to unfavorable weather but finally found a window to launch Polaris Dawn at 5:23 a.m. ET / 2:23 a.m. PT, just before sunrise at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
If Polaris Dawn had been further delayed, SpaceX would’ve had to clear pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center to prepare for the launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper probe on a Falcon Heavy rocket.
Farther than anyone else in 50 years. The Falcon 9 rocket has already completed four flights (including launching NASA’s Crew-8 mission and two Starlink missions). This time, it successfully placed the Crew Dragon spacecraft and its crew into an elliptical orbit with an apogee (maximum altitude) of about 745 miles.
The spacecraft will use its engines to reach about 870 miles by the end of the day, setting a record as the farthest any human has traveled from Earth since the Apollo missions more than half a century ago. This also marks the farthest distance a manned mission on a commercial spacecraft has ever achieved.
Going through the Van Allen radiation belt. Additionally, the new Polaris Dawn mission will mark the first time a manned commercial spacecraft has passed through the inner Van Allen radiation belt, one of two bands around Earth where energetic solar particles are trapped by our planet’s magnetic field.
During the mission, the spacecraft will travel through the South Atlantic Anomaly. This area of high radiation is caused by a distortion in Earth’s magnetic field and allows the Van Allen radiation belt to get closer to our planet’s surface than usual. Crew members on the Polaris Dawn mission will be exposed to as much radiation in a few hours as astronauts on the ISS receive in three months.
Scientific goals. Although Isaacman and SpaceX have funded the mission, Polaris Dawn has scientific and technical objectives. First, it aims to study the effects of radiation on astronaut health and the navigation and communication systems of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Additionally, the mission will explore potential differences in the effects of space flight on male and female crew members.
In this regard, the crewmembers will conduct 36 research studies and experiments from 31 different institutions with the goal of improving human health on Earth and in long-duration spaceflight.
Technical goals. Furthermore, the crewmembers are debuting SpaceX’s new pressurized spacesuits. The crew plans to test them in a significant way by performing the first extravehicular activity in the history of a private company. The Dragon probe will be depressurized to an altitude of about 435 miles, and both Isaacman and Menon will peer through the hatch into outer space without ever fully exiting the spacecraft.
Dragon ‘Resilience,’ which has already flown for NASA’s Crew-1 mission and the private Inspiration4 mission, will also debut laser communications with Starlink from space, enabling it to transmit live high-definition video. However, the team may keep many of the images for a later documentary, as was the case with Inspiration4.
Image | Jared Isaacman (via X)
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