The first non-governmental spacewalk was executed by a four-person team under the Spacex mission Polaris Dawn. The crew traveled in SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and reached a high altitude last accomplished in 1972.
The spacecraft, Dragon 2, finally launched September 10th at the Kennedy Space center in Florida, after being postponed several times due to a helium leak and weather conditions.
The four-person crew is made up of two Spacex mission specialists, Anna Memon and Sarah Gillis, as well as retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet and former Inspiration4 Commander Jared Isaacman.
In space, the Dragon craft will be in orbit for five days, where the crew plans to break several milestones for space exploration.
“[The] launch of Polaris Dawn, the first of the Polaris Program’s three human spaceflight missions, [is] designed to advance the future of spaceflight,” the SpaceX X account wrote.
The first of these accomplishments was being able to reach an altitude of 870 miles on September 10th, something that had not been achieved since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
“Falcon 9 will launch Dragon to an elliptical orbit of 190 by 1,200 km, where it will orbit the Earth about eight times before raising itself to an apogee of 1,400 km. This will be the highest humans have traveled in Earth’s orbit since the completion of the Apollo program over 50 years ago,” The SpaceX X account tweeted.
On September 12th, the first commercial spacewalk was live streamed by SpaceX. Billionaire Jared Isaacman and Spacex employee Sarah Gillis were the first to perform a non-governmental spacewalk. While only 15 minutes per person, the spacewalk will help SpaceX understand the capabilities of their EVA (extravehicular activity) spacesuits with hopes to use them in the future for long term missions like Mars exploration.
Along with the spacewalk, on September 13th the crew will test a laser’s communication with their starlink satellites, in hopes of improving Space-to-Earth contact.
During the rest of their time in orbit, the team will work to compile data by using ultrasounds to identify VGE (venous gas embolism) caused by atmospheric gas in the circulatory system, and research the effects of radiation on humans in space.
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission marks the first commercial spacewalk. As private space companies become increasingly common, similar space missions are sure to follow.
