"Are You a CEO, Director, or Founder interested in a Feature Interview?"
All Interviews are 100% FREE of Charge
A private space mission, aiming to perform the first-ever private spacewalk, is scheduled to launch this week. SpaceX has announced that the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the Polaris Dawn crew into orbit is scheduled for 3:38 a.m. ET on Tuesday, August 27. Led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn will send a four-person civilian crew 870 miles from Earth, the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo missions. The spacewalk, in which two of the crew members will step outside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, will take them to an altitude of 435 miles above Earth.
The Polaris Dawn crew includes Shift4 CEO Isaacman as commander, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Kidd-Poteet as pilot, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon as mission specialists, with Menon also serving as medical officer. The mission is expected to last about five days.
Though only two crew members will actually leave the spacecraft during the flight, everyone will be exposed to the vacuum of space when the hatch opens because the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock. This will be an important test of SpaceX’s new spacewalk suits, which all Polaris Dawn crew members will have to wear for their safety. Ahead of the mission, Menon said the suit had undergone extensive testing on the ground and expressed confidence in its performance. “We have no doubt the suit can be pressurized there,” he said, adding that the team is “spending a lot of time at the moment pressurizing the suit.”
Polaris Dawn will test Starlink laser communications in space for the first time and collect data to aid in research into the effects of spaceflight on human health. The mission has been years in the making and is the first of three planned Polaris spaceflights.
"Elevate Your Brand with an Exclusive Feature Interview!"