SpaceX Launches Billionaire’s Private Crew on Milestone Spacewalk Mission

By Joey Roulette and Gerry Doyle

WASHINGTON – Early on Tuesday, four private astronauts embarked on a journey into space aboard a modified SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, marking the beginning of the five-day Polaris Dawn mission. This mission aims to test new spacesuit designs and conduct the first private spacewalk.

The crew, consisting of a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot, and two SpaceX engineers, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at approximately 5:23 a.m. EST.

The capsule achieved orbit about nine and a half minutes after liftoff. As the effects of zero gravity set in, the crew playfully tossed a small plush astronaut toy around the cabin. Crew Dragon detached from its support trunk three minutes later, with onboard cameras capturing stunning views of the capsule soaring above the illuminated Earth.

SpaceX Launch Director Frank Messina communicated with the crew via radio, encouraging them as they set off on their mission. He emphasized the importance of their skills, bravery, and teamwork, sending support from the ground.

The Falcon 9 booster used for the launch successfully returned to a seaborne landing pad.

This mission marks Crew Dragon’s fifth venture into private astronaut flights, and it is considered the most challenging to date. The spacecraft will transition into an elliptical orbit, ranging from as close as 190 km (118 miles) to as far as 1,400 km (870 miles) from Earth—the farthest any humans have traveled since the U.S. Apollo program concluded in 1972.

A previous attempt to launch had been postponed due to a minor helium leak in the equipment on SpaceX’s launchpad, which was subsequently repaired. However, a recovery failure during an unrelated mission grounded the Falcon 9 booster, causing further delays. The launch was ultimately pushed back about two hours on Tuesday due to adverse weather conditions.

Historically, only highly trained government astronauts have conducted spacewalks, with approximately 270 occurring aboard the International Space Station (ISS) since its inception in 2000, alongside 16 conducted by Chinese astronauts on the Tiangong space station.

SPACEWALK PLANNED FOR THIRD DAY

The anticipated spacewalk during the Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled for the third day at an altitude of 700 km. This spacewalk will last around 20 minutes. The Crew Dragon will slowly depressurize its cabin, as it lacks an airlock like the ISS, and the astronauts will rely on newly designed, slimmed-down spacesuits for oxygen.

The first U.S. spacewalk occurred in 1965 on a Gemini capsule and followed a similar depressurization protocol.

Jared Isaacman, a 41-year-old pilot and billionaire founder of Shift4, is financing the Polaris mission, just as he did for the Inspiration4 mission with SpaceX in 2021. While he has not disclosed the specific cost, it is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Joining Isaacman are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; as well as two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, aged 30 and 38, respectively.

For the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the spacecraft while tethered by an oxygen line, while Poteet and Menon remain inside.

This mission is the first of Isaacman’s Polaris program, which will also include a follow-up Crew Dragon mission and eventually a flight on SpaceX’s Starship, a major vehicle designed for future moon and Mars missions.

The crew will serve as subjects for various scientific experiments aimed at understanding the effects of cosmic radiation and the vacuum of space on the human body, building on decades of research conducted on astronauts aboard the ISS.

Following the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on SpaceX and its Crew Dragon spacecraft, which has successfully completed nine astronaut missions for the agency and is currently the only U.S. crewed spacecraft in operation.

SpaceX has previously conducted four private missions, including Isaacman’s Inspiration4 and three missions organized by Axiom Space.

Meanwhile, Boeing continues to face challenges developing its own crewed spacecraft, Starliner, with recent test flights resulting in propulsion system issues that hindered crew return to Earth.