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SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission: Breaking Records and Keeping Crew Members Safe
After several weather-related delays in August, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission launched early in the morning on September 10. Mission members include four civilians: billionaire Jared Isaacson, former US Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. The mission is headed toward Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts in the Crew Dragon capsule, where two crew members plan to take the first privately-funded spacewalk ever. Strict security precautions have been taken to ensure their safe travel and return.
Safety Concerns
Below are several of the safety concerns faced by Polaris Dawn. These, and others, are taken into consideration for all voyages into space.
Weather: The mission was supposed to launch in August but was delayed several times due to bad weather. Even on its rescheduled launch date of September 10, the mission was delayed a few hours by “unfavorable weather at the launch site.” Good weather conditions, including the sky, winds, and waters, are crucial for the safe takeoff and return of the Crew Dragon and its members.
Oxygen supply: The planned spacewalk will drain a lot of the mission’s oxygen supply, which is why the mission is scheduled for only five days. Six days is the utmost maximum crew members will have before the oxygen supply runs out.
Spacewalk: Perhaps the most daunting (and exciting) aspect of the mission, on Day 3, the four crew members will be exposed to the vacuum of space, though only two will actually go out for a “walk,” which is more like a float. Preceding the spacewalk, the crew members will undergo the “pre-breathe” process, which involves purging the nitrogen from their blood so that the gas does not bubble up in their bloodstream due to changing pressure in the capsule. The same phenomenon — decompression sickness — can happen after scuba diving, when divers rise out of the water too quickly.
Another major challenge of the spacewalk comes at the end – closing the hatch on board the Crew Dragon capsule and getting pressurization back to normal. Exposure to the vacuum may cause the release of toxins from the capsule’s hardware when the cabin is repressurized, but SpaceX has said it has taken preventative measures to prevent this from happening.
Spacesuits: SpaceX spent 2.5 years developing the most sophisticated space suits possible, dubbed Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suits. While 2.5 may sound like a lot, in terms of space science, it’s quite fast. By comparison, NASA has been trying for more than 10 years to get new spacesuits to replace the 40-year old ones used at the International Space Station..
Testing Starlink: Starlink is the SpaceX network of internet-beaming satellites that serve customers on earth. One of the mission’s goals (of which there are 36) is to test Starlink’s potential for in-space connectivity, a capability that could significantly impact future missions.
Making History While Maintaining Space Travel Safety
Polaris Dawn is not only about space exploration. As a privately-funded mission, one of its aims is to re-pioneer space exploration and break a few world records in the process. On the first day of its flight, Polaris Dawn broke the existing record for the highest orbit around earth. The previous record was set in 1966, when a NASA mission reached 853 miles. Polaris Dawn reached 870 miles. This mission is also the furthest a human has traveled since the last Apollo mission in 1972 and the furthest a woman has ever traveled into space.
While breaking records may push human resilience to the limits and space exploration may advance research, SpaceX understands that the safety of its crew is its top priority. As such, it has invested heavily in protecting the humans aboard the capsule. We might be only small specks in a vast universe, but each speck is an entire world in and of itself.