Scientific Asia: The countdown to SpaceX’s most recent mission, a daring and dangerous journey into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts by a four-person civilian crew hoping to do the first-ever commercial spacewalk, is finally starting.
Polaris Dawn was scheduled to launch on Tuesday as early as 3:38 a.m. ET. However, due to adverse weather at the launchpad, SpaceX decided to try for a later launch window of 5:23 a.m. ET. The earliest feasible launch window on Tuesday is at 7:09 a.m. ET.
The ceremony is being streamed live on X, the social media site SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acquired in 2022. X was originally known as Twitter.
The Polaris Dawn crew’s attempts to launch in late August were impeded by multiple problems, which led to this attempt at launch. First, weather projections led SpaceX to cancel two additional attempts, and then an issue with ground equipment at the launch site moved the target date forward by 24 hours.
At about the same moment, a Falcon 9 rocket that would propel Polaris Dawn into space experienced a problem during a routine satellite mission, which led federal officials to suspend the flight of all Falcon 9 rockets temporarily. On August 30, SpaceX was given the go-ahead to resume Falcon 9 flights.
The corporation is currently attempting to launch one of its riskiest missions to date once more, but the impending launch attempt could yet be thwarted by bad weather.
According to a SpaceX post on X, the likelihood of poor circumstances for a Tuesday launch is now 60%.
The fact that SpaceX must guarantee calm seas and winds when the crew returns from their five-day space journey adds even more complexity to the launch possibilities. Clear skies alone are not enough for the mission to succeed. It can be important to time their return. The Polaris Dawn mission will only have adequate oxygen for five or six days in space due to the drain that conducting a spacewalk will inflict on oxygen supplies.
The journey into orbit
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will blast into action, causing a blinding blaze and thundering boom over the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, if weather and projections hold and the countdown clock reaches zero.
As the rocket breaks free from Earth’s gravitational pull, the crew will travel atop it, strapped inside an igloo-shaped SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that is roughly 13 feet (4 meters) broad at its base.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which is located at the bottom, will have used up the majority of its fuel after blazing for two and a half minutes.
At that moment, the upper section of the rocket will ignite its engine and begin pushing the Crew Dragon spacecraft toward greater speeds, while the first stage will separate from the rocket’s second stage.
In the interim, the Falcon 9’s first stage will be directed back to Earth and land on a marine platform so that it may be repaired and utilized on other flights. That is a hallmark action of SpaceX, and the corporation claims it lowers the cost of rocket launches.
The Falcon 9 rocket must reach “orbital velocity,” or more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,358 kilometers per hour), to enter Earth’s orbit. The Crew Dragon will separate once it achieves the required speed, leaving it to spend the rest of the voyage navigating the vacuum of space with only its internal engines.
First attempt at a commercial spacewalk
SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of Shift4 Payments, a financial technology company, came up with the idea for Polaris Dawn. Isaacman launched his maiden space flight attempt with the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.
But this isn’t a joyride, either.
On this journey, Isaacman and his crewmates—SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, as well as a close friend and former US Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet—hope to achieve several superlatives.
First, the SpaceX capsule wants to take the crew into orbit around the Earth at altitudes never before achieved by space travel, beating the mark established by NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966, which traveled 853 miles (1,373 kilometers). Polaris Dawn would surpass that record by roughly twenty miles (32 kilometers) if it is successful.
Additionally, the Polaris Dawn spacecraft would be the highest human journey since NASA’s Apollo program, which concluded in 1972 and sent 24 men, all of whom traveled a quarter of a million miles to the moon instead of coming to a stop in Earth’s orbit.
Additionally, Polaris Dawn might be the furthest into space any woman has ever traveled.
Day three of this mission will begin with a historic spacewalk attempt by the civilian crew while they are orbiting Earth at a lower altitude of roughly 435 miles (700 kilometers).
The mission will be dangerous since it will put the interior of the Crew Dragon and all four crew members in the space vacuum. Due to pressure variations, it could be challenging to relock the car’s hatch in such a circumstance.
Additionally, although SpaceX claims to have taken precautions to avoid it, exposure to the vacuum may cause toxins to be released from the hardware when the cabin is depressurized.
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