| Polaris Dawn | |
| Mission Type: | Private spaceflight |
| Operator: | SpaceX |
| Mission Duration: | 5 days (planned) |
| Spacecraft Type: | Crew Dragon |
| Crew Size: | 4 |
| Launch Date: | UTC (3:38 amEDT)[1] |
| Launch Rocket: | Falcon 9 Block 5 (B1083.4) |
| Launch Site: | Kennedy, LC39A |
| Recovery By: | or |
| Landing Date: | 31 August 2024 (planned) |
| Landing Site: | Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico |
| Insignia: | Polaris Dawn Patch.png |
| Insignia Caption: | Mission Patch |
| Crew Photo: | Polaris Dawn Crew Portrait (Montage).jpg |
| Crew Photo Caption: | From left: Isaacman, Poteet, Gillis and Menon |
| Orbit Apoapsis: | (initially) (later)[2] |
| Orbit Inclination: | 51.6° |
| Apsis: | gee |
| Programme2: | Crew Dragon flights |
| Previous Mission2: | SpaceX Crew-8 |
| Next Mission2: | SpaceX Crew-9 |
Polaris Dawn is a planned private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman and is the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. During the mission, the Crew Dragon capsule is expected to propel Isaacman and his crew of three — Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — to a highly elliptical orbit that will take them up to 1400km (900miles) away from Earth, the furthest anyone has been since NASA's Apollo program, so that they pass through parts of the Van Allen radiation belt to study the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body. Later in the mission, Isaacman and Gillis are expected to attempt the first commercial spacewalk. It is scheduled to launch no earlier than 26 August 2024.
The Polaris program was announced by Jared Isaacman in February 2022, five months after the first all-private astronaut mission, Inspiration4, which was also financially backed by Isaacman.[3] [4] Development of several technologies necessary for the mission is also part of the program, including extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits for private astronauts, intersatellite laser communication links between the Dragon spacecraft and the Starlink constellation, and some accommodation for the lack of an airlock in the legacy Dragon capsule design.[5]
Originally slated to fly as early as late 2022, the program suffered delays over the design of the EVA spacesuits and technical problems with SpaceX testing intersatellite laser communication links. By October 2022, the launch had already slipped to March 2023,[6] [7] and by February 2023, had slipped to no earlier than mid-2023.[8] [9] By mid-2023, the planned date had slipped to sometime in 2024,[10] with Isaacman confirming in December a launch date of April 2024.[5] On 7 June, in an interview, Isaacman announced that the launch was scheduled to launch no earlier than 12 July 2024.[11] [12] 3 weeks later, the Polaris program announced on its X account that the earliest target launch date was 31 July 2024.[13] [14]
The mission was delayed again following the failure of a Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage on 12 July 2024. After SpaceX addressed the cause of the mishap, SpaceX's Dragon mission management director Sarah Walker announced in a 26 July news conference that Polaris Dawn would launch "in late summer" after the Crew-9 mission for NASA, which was scheduled to launch no earlier than 18 August before its delay.[15] SpaceX then said that it was targeting a 26 August launch date on 7 August.[16]
Polaris Dawn will be a human spaceflight to orbit Earth with only private citizens on board. The crew will consist of Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon, who will spend up to five days in orbit.
The mission will begin with a flexible launch window, with SpaceX mission controllers looking to launch during a time when there’s minimal risk from micrometeorite orbital debris. The Dragon capsule will initally be inserted into a highly elliptical orbit with an apogee that will take them up to 1200km (700miles) away from Earth and a perigee that will take the crew through the South Atlantic Anomaly at an altitude of 190km (120miles). The crew expects that making just two or three passes of the anomaly at that altitude will expose them to the equivalent radiation load of three months on the International Space Station, so that they may conduct experiments to study the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body.[17] [18] During this time, the crew will also do extensive checks of the Dragon capsule. If no faults are found, they will fire thrusters to will take them up to 1400km (900miles) away from Earth, the highest orbit of the planet ever flown by a crewed spacecraft, breaking the record set by Gemini 11,[19] and the farthest anyone has been from Earth since NASA's Apollo program.
On 4 May 2024, SpaceX unveiled a spacesuit designed for extravehicular activity based on the IVA suit for Polaris Dawn mission in Polaris program. As with the IVA suit, the helmets are 3D-printed, though the EVA helmet incorporates a heads-up display providing information and a camera on suit metrics during operation. It is more mobile, includes new thermal insulation fabrics, and materials used Falcon’s interstage and Crew Dragon’s external unpressurized trunk.[20]
The crew will spend their second day in space at their maximum altitude, conducting up to 40 experiments and preparing their EVA suits.
On the third day, after the Dragon has modified its orbit down to an apogee of 750km (470miles), Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis will also attempt the first commercial EVA for around two hours with SpaceX-designed spacesuits, which were first unveiled in May 2024.[21] The EVA suits will operate with pure oxygen at a pressure of .[22]
The EVA suits were designed to keep the astronauts safe while exposed to the vacuum of space, but also be comfortable and flexible enough to be worn during launch and landing, eliminating the need to carry separate intravehicular activity (IVA) suits normally worn during those mission phases, saving weight and space. Flame-resistant, stretching fabric material, and joints which stay soft until pressurized will help to provide greater mobility, while boots will be constructed from the thermal material used on Falcon 9's interstage and Dragon's trunk. Suit upgrades from the IVA suits also include improved thermal management and an upgraded helmet with an exterior coating that provides thermal insulation and anti-fog treatment. During the spacewalk, a camera and a heads-up display (HUD) will be used to provide information on suit metrics.[23] An umbilical will provide life support for these suits, which resemble early Gemini suits, as opposed to the EMUs used on the ISS.[24] [25]
Because Crew Dragon capsules do not have an airlock, several modifications have been made to the interior of Resilience to withstand the vacuum, extra nitrogen and oxygen tanks have been installed where crew cargo would normally be stored, a hatch with a ladder called the "skywalker" will replace the docking port, and all four astronauts will wear EVA suits, although only two will exit the spacecraft. Consequently, this mission will break the record for the most people in the vacuum of space at once, set during the STS-49 Shuttle mission when the only three-person EVA to date was performed, in an unplanned addition to the mission that came after a pair of previously unsuccessful EVAs and the hopes that three astronauts could complete a task that two could not.
Because of the unique depressurization protocol on the Dragon, done without an airlock, the crew plans to conduct research on decompression sickness (known as "the bends") to the study of spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).[26]
The crew will continue work on their 40 experiments during the fourth day of the mission, before preparing to come home on the fifth.
The mission will also be the first crewed operational test of Dragon laser interlink communication via Starlink. If successful, it would potentially decrease communication latency and increase data bandwidth for human spaceflight.[27]
Isaacman will lead the mission as Commander with retired Air Force fighter pilot Scott Poteet serving as spacecraft pilot. Isaacman will primarily operate the spacecraft, with Poteet acting as his backup. This role allocation is critical given the mission's inclusion of a spacewalk to be conducted by Isaacman.
Completing the crew are SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon as mission specialists. Gillis, the company's senior space operations engineer, will join Issacman on the spacewalk. Menon, a lead space operations engineer and mission director for the company, will act as onboard medical officer for the mission, tapping into her six years of experience as a biomedical flight controller at NASA, where she oversaw International Space Station operations.
Polaris Dawn is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket on 27 August 2024 at 3:38 a.m. ET.[28]