SpaceX’s five-day mission – dubbed Polaris Dawn – will swing in an oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190 km and as far as 1,400 km
Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Aug. 19.SpaceX’s attempt at the first ever private spacewalk next week will be a test of trailblazing equipment, including slim spacesuits and a cabin with no airlock, in one of the riskiest missions yet for Elon Musk’s space company.
SpaceX’s five-day mission – dubbed Polaris Dawn – will swing in an oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190 km and as far as 1,400 km , the farthest any humans will have ventured since the end of the United States’ Apollo moon program in 1972. The mission has been bankrolled by Isaacman, the founder of electronic payment company Shift4. He has declined to say how much he has spent, but it is estimated to be over $100 million.
Far outside the protective bubble of Earth’s atmosphere, the electronics and shielding on Crew Dragon and spacesuits will be tested as they pass through parts of the Van Allen belt, an area where charged particles streaming mainly from the sun can disrupt satellites’ electronics and affect human health.
The gumdrop-shaped Crew Dragon’s entire cabin will be depressurized and exposed to the vacuum of space. While only two of the astronauts will float outside, tethered by an oxygen line, the whole crew will depend on their spacesuits for life support. The crew will use an ultrasound device to monitor any bubble formation, one of many tools to be used in the mission to inform dozens of scientific experiments, providing researchers a rare peek into how astronauts might fare on the moon’s surface or elsewhere in deep space.
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