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The crew of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission has already made space flight history twice.
Non-professional astronauts of the Polaris Dawn mission, who went into orbit aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, made a spacewalk. It took place on Thursday, September 12, 2024, on the third day of the five-day mission. So, for the first time in history, ordinary people, and not astronauts, visited the spaceship in orbit around the Earth, writes Space.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying businessman Jared Isaacman, SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, and former US Air Force pilot Scott Poteet launched into orbit on Tuesday, September 10.
After 15 hours of flight, the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission entered the history of spaceflight as the first people in 52 years to visit an altitude of 1 km from the Earth's surface. Only the astronauts of the Apollo missions, who flew to the moon, have been so far in space.
For the second time, the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission made history after the Crew Dragon spacecraft descended to an altitude of 737 km above the Earth's surface and Isaacman and then Gillis went into outer space. No other person, apart from astronauts, has done this.
During the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis tested SpaceX's new spacesuits in real space conditions. These suits are light and flexible, but at the same time provide protection against the harsh conditions of outer space.
SpaceX plans to use these spacesuits not only during future manned missions into orbit, but also into deeper space, in particular on Starship ships. Фокус already wrote about the features of the new SpaceX spacesuits.
Specially for the Polaris Dawn mission, a major modification of the Crew Dragon spacecraft was carried out. The crew was able to exit it into outer space thanks to a new special hatch that replaced the typical docking station needed to connect to the International Space Station. This hatch was equipped with a ladder, as well as handrails and footrests.
The Polaris Dawn crew is also testing a new communications system that uses lasers to communicate with SpaceX's Starlink satellites. Also, four civilian astronauts conducted 36 different scientific experiments on board the spacecraft. Experiments will continue until the end of the mission. Some of them relate to the study of the reaction of the human body to space flight. The crew also flew through parts of the Earth's radiation belt, which provided an opportunity to better understand how this radiation affects the human body.
Four civilian astronauts are scheduled to return to Earth on the sixth day after launch. The ship is aground in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
