After traveling the deepest into space by any human in the past half-century, a pioneering private team is set to make history on Thursday with the first spacewalk by non-professional astronauts.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, reaching a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers).
It sits three times higher than the International Space Station, and in a region of space known as the inner Van Allen radiation belt — a region filled with dangerous, high-energy particles.
Now, as their Dragon spacecraft’s elliptical orbit has dropped to a lowest point of about 120 miles and a highest point of 430 miles, the four-member crew is preparing for the mission’s highlight: a bold extravehicular activity (EVA) scheduled for 0958 GMT on Thursday, with an additional time on Friday.
SpaceX on Thursday pushed the time back by a few hours without giving a reason. It had planned to begin a webcast of the event on its website about an hour earlier.
‘dance ish’
Before the hatch opens, the crew will complete a “pre-breathe” procedure to purge nitrogen from their blood, preventing decompression sickness caused by nitrogen bubbles. The cabin pressure will then be slowly reduced to match the pressure of space.
Once it opens, Isaacman and his fellow SpaceX engineer, Sarah Gillis, will take turns peering out from a structure attached to the hatch, called the “Skywalker,” which is equipped with arm and leg rests.
“It’ll feel like we’re doing a little dance,” Isaacman said during a recent press conference.
In fact, they’re testing SpaceX’s next-generation suit, which includes a head-up display, helmet cameras and advanced joint mobility systems.
However, they won’t be tethered like early astronauts such as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov or NASA’s Ed White in 1965. Instead, they’ll cling to the spacecraft as it orbits Earth at about 17,500 miles per hour.
Since the Crew Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, the entire crew will be exposed to the vacuum of space for the duration of the spacewalk, about two hours. After the hatch is closed, the cabin will be re-pressurized, and oxygen and nitrogen levels will return to normal.
Mission pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will monitor critical support systems during the activity, while Isaacman and Gillis are expected to spend about 15 to 20 minutes partially outside the spacecraft.
“The risk is certainly greater than zero, and it’s certainly greater than anything done on a commercial basis,” former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe told AFP.
“This is another important event in the commercialization of space for transportation,” he said, comparing the crew members to the early aviators who paved the way for modern air travel.
First of three Polaris missions
The four trained for more than two years to prepare for this historic mission, including hundreds of hours in simulators, as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving and climbing a volcano in Ecuador.
In addition to the spacewalk, the crew will also test laser-based satellite communications between the spacecraft and the vast Starlink satellite constellation.
They will also perform 36 scientific experiments, including tests on contact lenses with built-in microelectronics to monitor changes in eye pressure and shape in space.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions under the Polaris program, the result of a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX.
Financial terms of the partnership are still confidential, but Isaacman, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4Payments, has reportedly committed $200 million of his wealth to lead the 2021 all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission.
The final Polaris mission is aimed at the first manned flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a next-generation prototype rocket that’s crucial to founder Elon Musk’s ambitions of colonizing Mars.
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