Four passengers, a billionaire, a pilot and two SpaceX employees, are due to take off at 3:38 a.m. (9:38 a.m. in France) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A billionaire, a pilot and two SpaceX employees are set to blast off from Florida on Tuesday on a mission that is set to mark a new milestone in commercial space exploration, with the first private spacewalk in history. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch at 3:38 a.m. (0738 GMT, or 0938 in France) from the Kennedy Space Center. Alternative times are possible later in the same launch window, or on Wednesday. The launch has been postponed several times in the past two weeks, particularly due to poor weather conditions.
The commander of this mission, scheduled to last five days and named Polaris Dawn, is the American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has been collaborating with Elon Musk’s company for several years and is partly financing the trip (for an undisclosed amount). One of the main objectives is to test the company’s very first space suits — white and with a futuristic look.
“I imagine that one day, many people or even families will be jumping around on the lunar surface in their SpaceX suits.”Jared Isaacman said at a news conference last month. “It’s a huge honour to have the opportunity to test them on this flight.” The spacewalk is to be broadcast live on the third day of the mission. The spacecraft must first venture to an altitude of 1,400 km, the furthest for a crew since the Apollo lunar missions.
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Intensive training
This is the first time that SpaceX employees will go into space: Sarah Gillis is in charge of astronaut training for the company, and Anna Menon worked for NASA before joining SpaceX. They are to become the women who have traveled furthest from Earth.
The fourth passenger is pilot Scott Poteet, a former U.S. Air Force veteran and close friend of Jared Isaacman. The four adventurers have undergone intensive training for more than two years. During the spacewalk, since SpaceX’s Dragon ship is not equipped with an airlock, the entire crew will be exposed to the vacuum of space once the hatch is opened. Two passengers will remain on board, while two others will take turns venturing outside, each for about 15 minutes.
While remaining attached to the capsule, they will perform movements to test the new combinations. “We’ll give the impression of dancing a bit.”warned Jared Isaacman. The head of the financial company Shift4, he already went to space in 2021 aboard another SpaceX orbital mission that he had chartered, Inspiration4, the first to include no professional astronauts.
Polaris Dawn inaugurates the Polaris program, announced with great fanfare two and a half years ago. After a second similar mission, the third is to be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket, currently in development and intended for trips to the Moon and Mars.
