First Commercial Space Flight to Feature Spacewalk

Polaris Dawn is the first of the Polaris Program, a series of three planned space missions all funded and commanded by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of Shift4. 

The privately funded mission is slated to be launched July 31. SpaceX has announced it will provide the launch capability with its Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon crew capsule.

The upcoming flight will be the first-ever to feature a commercial astronaut Extravehicular Activity (EVA) or spacewalk. The astronauts will use SpaceX spacesuits adapted from the suits used inside the capsule and provide greater mobility, novel thermal management tiles, and a helmet with state-of-the-art heads-up display (HUD) and camera.

It will be Isaacman's second spaceflight and the other crew members include the Pilot, Lieut. Col. (USAF, Ret.) Scott “Kidd” Poteet, with Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, SpaceX operations engineers serving as Mission Specialists.

The spacecraft will be launched to an altitude of about 800 miles above Earth, the highest any crew has been since the Apollo missions to the Moon. For comparison, the International Space Station orbits at about 250 miles.

The crew is scheduled to spend five days in orbit with these objectives:

1. High altitude flight
2. First commercial EVA
3. In-space communications using Starlink laser-based system
4. Conduct research to advance knowledge of human health during future long-duration spaceflights

FMI: polarisprogram.com/dawn