SpaceX announced it was pushing back the launch plans “due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida”.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

SpaceX postponed once more its attempt at launching a daring orbital expedition featuring an all-civilian crew that is aiming to carry out the first-ever spacewalk by private citizens on Tuesday (August 27, 2024).

The Polaris Dawn mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, had been set to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a four-hour window early Wednesday (August 28, 2024).

But SpaceX announced it was pushing back the launch plans “due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida,” in a message on X (formerly Twitter).

An earlier attempt on Tuesday (August 28, 2024) was scrapped due to a helium leak on a line connecting the tower to the rocket.

Riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to reach a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) —higher than any crewed mission in more than half a century, since the Apollo era.

Mission commander Isaacman will guide his four-member team through the mission’s centerpiece: the first-ever spacewalk carried out by non-professional astronauts, equipped with sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.

Rounding out the team are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX; and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, also a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX.

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The quartet underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the landmark mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and summiting an Ecuadoran volcano.

Polaris Dawn is set to be the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Mr. Isaacman, the founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX.

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Mr. Isaacman declined to reveal his total investment in the project, though reports suggest he paid around $200 million for the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, the first all-civilian orbital mission.

Polaris Dawn will reach its highest altitude on its first day, venturing briefly into the Van Allen radiation belt, a region teeming with high-energy charged particles that can pose health risks to humans over extended periods.

On day three, the crew will don their state-of-the-art EVA spacesuits — outfitted with heads-up displays, helmet cameras, and advanced joint mobility systems — and take turns to venture outside their spacecraft in twos.

Each will spend 15 to 20 minutes in space, 435 miles above Earth’s surface.

Also on their to-do list are testing laser-based satellite communication between the spacecraft and Starlink, SpaceX’s more than 6,000-strong constellation of internet satellites, in a bid to boost space communication speeds, and conducting nearly 40 scientific experiments.

These include tests with contact lenses embedded with microelectronics to continuously monitor changes in eye pressure and shape.

After six days in space, the mission will conclude with the splashdown off the coast of Florida.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission in Cape Canaveral, Florida, August 26, 2024. The mission crew will carry out the first ever private spacewalk.
| Photo Credit: AFP

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission is poised to make history this week with the first privately managed spacewalk, a risky endeavour previously undertaken only by government astronauts.

Two of the mission’s four-member crew will venture out of their Crew Dragon capsule in Earth’s orbit for a tethered spacewalk, marking the first major test of SpaceX’s new spacesuits.

The capsule lacks an airlock and will completely depressurize for the spacewalk, requiring all four crew members to rely on their suits for survival.

The mission, scheduled for launch at 3:38 a.m. ET (0738 GMT) on Aug. 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is expected to last six days, with the spacewalk planned for the third day.

Here’s a look at the profile of the astronauts:

Jared Isaacman

Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of payments processing firm Shift4 Payments and a seasoned pilot, is commanding the Polaris Dawn mission and will be one of the two members – along with Sarah Gillis – performing the spacewalk outside the capsule.

He is bankrolling the mission under his Polaris program, although he declined to disclose the total expenditure, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The mission will be his second foray into space, following his leadership of the first all-civilian Inspiration4 mission to orbit Earth in 2021, organized and primarily funded by him in partnership with SpaceX.

After Polaris Dawn, Isaacman has two more missions planned under the Polaris program – another flight on Crew Dragon followed by a flight on Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket under development. He has not announced crewmates or dates for those flights.

Sarah Gillis

Gillis has trained astronauts and now is becoming one herself. She graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with an engineering degree, began as an intern at SpaceX in 2015 and is now the company’s senior space operations engineer. Her responsibilities include training astronauts on safety and flight operations. Gillis, Polaris Dawn’s mission specialist, has trained NASA astronauts for several operations, including International Space Stations Dragon missions Demo-2 and Crew-1 and Inspiration4 mission in 2021.

Scott Poteet

Poteet, the mission pilot for Polaris Dawn, had a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force, with more than 3,200 flight hours in various aircraft including the F-16 fighter jet.

Poteet’s involvement in the private space sector began when he served as Mission Director for the Inspiration4 mission.

The New Hampshire native’s role in the latest mission extends beyond just piloting the spacecraft to assisting with the spacewalk, providing communication support and collaborating with mission control.

Poteet was the vice president of strategy at Isaacman’s Shift4 company until 2022, according to his LinkedIn. Until 2020, he was a business development director at defense contractor Draken International, founded by Isaacman, before he sold a majority stake in the firm to Blackstone in 2019.

Anna Menon

Menon is a mission specialist and medical officer for the program and is a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, where she manages the development of crew operations, ensuring that procedures and protocols are in place for astronauts during their missions.

The former NASA biomedical flight controller will be responsible for the crew’s health and well-being during the Polaris Dawn mission, monitoring their physiological responses and providing medical care if needed.

She holds a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University.

Menon is married to Anil Menon, a former SpaceX flight surgeon who is currently a NASA astronaut-in-training.