Polaris Dawn Aims to Reach Furthest Orbit Since Lunar Landings

SpaceX kicked the week off with a surprise, breaking news of an upcoming mission led by tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, veteran of the Inspiration4 mission last fall. The mission, Polaris Dawn, will take his prior adventure's goals even further, going to a higher orbit with a larger crew of privately-funded civilian astronauts. If successful, the Polaris will end up reaching the highest point a manned spaceflight has reached since the Moon missions decades prior.

Issacman expects to fund 3 more trips into space as he fundraises for St. Jude Children's Hospital, much like his Inspiration4 mission that saw over $240 million raised for the organization. Integral to his plans is the world-spanning network of Starlink, which he plans to use as an uplink to home to field questions and interact with followers during the journey. The commercial astronaut crew will have the chance to collect a series of firsts along the way, like the first astronaut spacewalk of private astronauts and long-distance communications in real-time. The crew selected for the mission are all veteran pilots, engineers, and specialists with a long history of working together - a vital aspect of the project to ensure "a foundation of trust they can build upon as they undergo the challenges of this mission," said SpaceX. 

Polaris Dawn is targeted to launch sometime after the 4th quarter of 2022 from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will push the Dragon to exhibit its maximum performance, said SpaceX in a release announcing the surprise project. "This Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon’s maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, during which the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration space flights, and be the first crew to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

FMI: www.spacex.com