SpaceX announces new date for Polaris Dawn launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — The Polaris Dawn mission is set to make history with a series of firsts, from a commercial spacewalk to achieving the highest orbit around Earth.

Polaris Dawn’s Cmdr. Jared Isaacman, pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Anna Menon, medical officer and mission specialist, and Sarah Gillis, who will also be a mission specialist, will climb aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule named Resilience and leave on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission was originally set for Monday, Aug. 26. However, SpaceX announced Wednesday that they are now targeting Tuesday, Aug. 27, for the Polaris Dawn launch. According to the company, the new date allows additional time for teams to complete preflight checkouts ahead of next week’s launch. 

The launch window is from 3:38 a.m. ET until 7 a.m. ET, as the Falcon 9 will be leaving from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster, B1083, has an impressive record of launches.

And so does the Dragon for this mission, which has done only two launches: Crew-1 and Inspiration4. Inspiration4 was the first all-citizen spaceflight, which Isaacman helped to spearhead and was a member of.

Going around Earth

For five days, these private citizens will orbit the Earth while conducting experiments and doing a series of firsts, such as a commercial spacewalk. Before Polaris Dawn, the only spacewalks done were by government space agencies such as NASA.

The mission is in collaboration with SpaceX.

The Polaris Program’s first Polaris Dawn mission will see the new first-generation SpaceX spacesuit, also known as an extravehicular activity (EVA).

The suit offers greater flexibility, with a helmet that offers a heads-up display and camera. All four will be wearing a suit, especially since the Dragon needs to be depressurized before the big spacewalk done by Isaacman and Gillis, who will be tethered to the capsule.

The mission will also see the furthest planned orbit, with the crew hoping to reach 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above the planet and breaking the record made by the Gemini 11 mission in 1966, which achieved an altitude of 853 miles (1,373 kilometers) above the Earth.

Menon and Gillis will be the first women in history to reach a high-altitude orbit. They are also lead space operations engineers at SpaceX.

Each day will see something different, from day one where the crew will prepare for the spacewalk and attempt to break the high orbit record, which will see them pass through the Van Allen radiation belt.

Day two will be more prep work for the spacewalk and a book reading to the kids at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The Polaris Dawn mission, like Inspiration4, will raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Day three will be a livestream of the spacewalk as Day 4 will be another mission objective: Testing the Starlink laser communications system.

This Dragon capsule had a special device installed in it to be able to communicate with Starlink satellites.

Day five will see the crew prepare for what comes on the sixth day, when the four will be splashing down off Florida’s coast.

On Monday, Aug. 19, the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission gave a press conference about the mission and went into detail, such as the medical experiments that they will be conducting.

In fact, in an interview with Spectrum News, Poteet shared what some of those experiments will be like.

Isaacman also said that this is not the only mission. This one is a steppingstone to a Polaris Dawn II mission, which will see them in another Dragon. But it is the third mission that will see the crew in SpaceX’s famed Starship.

“The third mission will be the first crewed flight of Starship,” he said. “(It has) twice the thrust of the Saturn IV and it could very well be the 737 for human space flight someday but it will certainly be the vehicle that will return humans to the moon and then onto Mars and beyond.”