Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman will on Tuesday, August 27 takeoff on a private SpaceX rocket. This will be the first all-civilian spaceflight as part of the Polaris Program.
The 41-year-old founder of payment tech company Shift4 has spent two years training for the mission along with his three other crew members—Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
“We are incredibly thankful for this opportunity and to the thousands of SpaceX engineers who have contributed to this endeavor,” Isaacman, who was contracted with SpaceX to create Polaris, said.
The mission will venture 870 miles from Earth, breaking the record for the farthest human travel since the Apollo era.
“SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Polaris Dawn mission from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, flying higher than any Dragon mission to-date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown,” states the official Polaris website.
Starlink Laser-based Communication
The crew will test Starlink’s laser linked internet during the mission. SpaceX employs a fleet of 9,000 lasers on the Starlink constellation to deliver high-speed internet across the globe. Currently, SpaceX’s laser system for Starlink is delivering over 42 petabytes (42 million GB) of data for customers per day.
According to Elon Musk, Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum and shorter path than undersea fiber.
The Polaris Program Mission I
The Polaris Program, named after a constellation of three stars more commonly known as the North Star, is part of efforts to advance human spaceflight capabilities. It is a completely private spaceflight program.
Polaris Dawn is Mission I of the program. This mission will be the first to test Starlink laser-based communications in space. Other than Starlink, the Polaris Dawn mission will include a spacewalk. In addition, the team will conduct 36 experiments for organizations like NASA, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The Dragon spacecraft will orbit Earth in an elliptical path, reaching a maximum altitude of 870 miles. At 434 miles, the crew will attempt a 20-minute spacewalk, which will be the first by private astronauts and will take place at a higher altitude than previous spacewalks on the ISS. The crew will test SpaceX-developed spacesuits designed for enhanced comfort and safety during spacewalks.
