New Delhi: US billionaire Jared Isaacman, who commanded the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission last year, announced Monday three more private missions with Elon Musk's SpaceX. These missions will include spacewalking and the first crewed flight of the next-generation Starship rocket, news agency AFP reported.
The first mission is called Polaris Dawn. It is slated to launch in the fourth quarter of the year, the official website of the mission said. Isaacman, the founder of payment processing company Shift4, will serve as the Commander of the Polaris Dawn mission. In September 2021, Isaacman, who is an experienced pilot, led the Inspiration4 mission, the world's first all-civilian mission to orbit. The four crewmembers completed a three-day orbital mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX intends to carry out more ambitious space missions. Until last year, space missions were carried out only by national space agencies. The Polaris Program represents a new step for space tourism, which took flight in 2021.
All About Polaris Dawn
According to the AFP report, Isaacman revealed in a press call that the Polaris Program will be co-funded by himself and SpaceX. The program is named after Polaris, commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. Isaacman did not specify details such as total cost, or the percentage each side would contribute. The mission is expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the AFP report.
"This program has been purposefully designed to advance long duration spaceflight capabilities... guiding us towards the ultimate goal of facilitating Mars exploration," Isaacman told reporters, the AFP report stated.
The crew of Polaris Dawn will travel deeper into space than any Dragon has previously flown. Isaacman said that the altitude of the mission would be similar to NASA's Project Gemini, which is the US space agency's second crewed spaceflight program in the 1960s. Gemini helped NASA get ready for the Apollo Moon landings.
Gemini 11, the ninth crewed Earth-orbiting spacecraft of the Gemini series, was a three-day mission which flew to an apogee of 1374.1 kilometres. This was a record altitude for an astronaut mission that would stand until Apollo 8 went to the Moon, according to NASA. Gemini 11 flew far deeper into space than more recent missions to the International Space Station, whose orbital height is 408 kilometres.
The first commercial spacewalk will also be attempted as part of Polaris Dawn, the official website of the mission said. This will require new extravehicular space suits which are yet to be developed.
The Crew Dragon will be exposed to the vacuum of space when the hatch is opened because the spacecraft has no airlock.
According to the AFP report, mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon said that the crew will "Make sure that everything is secured very well before we open that hatch."
The spacecraft will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida o a Falcon 9 rocket, and will spend up to five days in orbit.
The crew will enter the inner Van Allen belt as part of the mission. This belt is a region of dangerous radiation that protects the Earth from solar wind.
The crew will be exposed to radiation when they enter that region. Menon, a former NASA employee whose husband Anil Menon was selected by NASA to join the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class, said that Dragon's hull and the new spacesuits will help protect the crew.
Quoting Anna Menon, the AFP report said that she and her husband had just told their four-year-old son that daddy was going to be an astronaut. She said that her son's first response was, 'Mama, when are you going to be an astronaut?', and just weeks later, her invitation to join Isaacman's mission came.
The crew for the mission includes former US Air Force Colonel Scott Poteet as its pilot. Poteet is an executive at Shift4 and private aerospace contractor Draken International, both founded by Isaacman.
Sarah Gills, who is SpaceX's lead operations engineer, will serve as mission specialist, according to the official website of Polaris Dawn.
The crew will test laser-based communication in space using SpaceX's Starlink satellite, and conduct medical research during the mission. The research includes studying decompression sickness, the impacts of space radiation, and the effects of spaceflight on eye health.
Of the three SpaceX missions, the last will involve a Starship rocket. Musk believes that Starship is the key to fulfilling his vision of colonising Mars.