On September 12, 2024, the Polaris Dawn manned space mission, orchestrated by billionaire Jared Isaacman in collaboration with SpaceXSpaceXwas preparing to carry out the very first private extravehicular exit (EVA) in history. Although the mission was generally successful, Reuters today revealed an incident that occurred during the operation: SpaceX briefly lost control of the ship shortly before the exit.
Power outage
It was the middle of the night at SpaceX’s space operations headquarters in Hawthorne, California, when an unexpected power outage interrupted the connection to the Dragon ship and its crew for more than an hour, according to three corroborating sources cited by Reuters.
At this point, SpaceX ground teams briefly found themselves unable to pilot and track the spacecraft remotely. Of course, the crew of the Crew Dragon was at no risk, as they were fully capable of piloting the ship themselves. In addition, it could continue to communicate with the ground thanks to the Starlink network, a welcome redundancy specific to SpaceX.
Fortunately, this incident was harmless and does not seem to have had any consequences on the rest of the operations. Shortly after, Jared Isaacman was able to make his exit, followed by SpaceX collaborator Sarah Gillis. But this problem is nevertheless important, because the ground teams closely monitor the proper functioning of the ship throughout the mission, and can then identify problems. anomaliesanomalies while the crew does its job, and thus respond quickly to unforeseen events.
Transparency
This incident had not been revealed until now. Only SpaceX reported it to NASA, because the American space agency uses the same vessels for its astronauts. Neither SpaceX nor NASA have made any comment on this subject. This highlights a possible lack of transparencytransparency private companies in human spaceflight and space tourism, which is not without risk. As a reminder, Jared Isaacman, commander of PolarisPolaris DawnDawn and founder of the Polaris program, was chosen by Donald Trump to lead NASA from 2025.
