Private Astronauts to Attempt First Commercial Spacewalk
A group of private astronauts will perform the first privately conducted spacewalk on Thursday. The spacewalk will be from a SpaceX capsule and will test a new line of spacesuits.
Crew Members and the Polaris Dawn Mission
This historic event is part of the Polaris Dawn mission, which launched from Florida on Tuesday. The crew consists of a billionaire entrepreneur, a former military pilot, and two SpaceX engineers. They have been orbiting Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule since the pre-dawn launch.
Jared Isaacman, 41, is leading the mission. He is the founder of Shift4, an electronic payment company, and has funded the Polaris mission as he did with his previous Inspiration4 flight in 2021. Isaacman has not disclosed the cost of the mission, but estimates suggest it could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Crew Dragon seats for other missions have cost around $55 million each.
The other crew members include Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both senior engineers. During the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the spacecraft, while Poteet and Menon will remain inside.
Spacewalk Details
The spacewalk is set to begin at 2:23 a.m. ET (0623 GMT) while the capsule orbits at an altitude of 700 km (435 miles). Isaacman and Gillis will rely on their SpaceX-developed spacesuits, remaining tethered to the spacecraft by an oxygen line. Unlike previous government-led spacewalks, this one will see the entire capsule depressurised, meaning the crew inside will also be dependent on their spacesuits for oxygen.
Government astronauts have conducted roughly 270 spacewalks since the International Space Station (ISS) was created in 2000. In comparison, this mission is a major step in commercial spaceflight. The US first conducted a spacewalk in 1965 aboard a Gemini capsule, using a similar process to the one planned for Polaris Dawn.
Advancing Commercial Spaceflight
The Polaris Dawn mission aims to push the boundaries of private space exploration. The astronauts will contribute to scientific research on how the human body reacts to deep space conditions, continuing the decades of studies conducted on the ISS.
Since 2021, Crew Dragon has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions, mostly for NASA. This spacecraft, developed under a NASA program, has established a commercial option for ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS. Boeing’s Starliner capsule, developed under the same NASA initiative, has faced delays. Its first crewed mission in June experienced problems, leaving its crew on the ISS. A Crew Dragon capsule will return them to Earth next year.