The News
SpaceX successfully launched the private Polaris Dawn from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday, marking a milestone for commercial space travel that could see the first-ever non-government spacewalk.
The mission is funded and piloted by billionaire Jared Isaacman, and is set to fly its four-person crew higher above the Earth — 870 miles — than any other crewed spaceflight since the Cold War’s Apollo missions.
Among the mission’s numerous scientific goals is to testing the impact of space radiation on the human body — in part through extreme exposure. Two of the mission’s four-member crew are expected to conduct a spacewalk using a spacesuit specially designed by SpaceX — while they do so, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will open to the vacuum of space, meaning all the crew will depend on life support systems before the capsule closes and re-pressurizes.
It’s a “risky endeavour previously undertaken only by government astronauts,” Reuters noted.
SIGNALS
Polaris Dawn marks ‘giant leap for commercial space travel’
Much more than a billionaire joyride, the Polaris Dawn mission is a “giant leap for commercial space travel,” NPR wrote. The mission will be a first-of-its-kind test for what is a more risky mode of conducting a spacewalk than typically used by astronauts on other missions, like the ISS, for example, and for the record distance it could travel from Earth — something SpaceX wants to prove as part of its grand ambition to get humans to Mars in the next decade. If successful, it will further underscore SpaceX’s dominance over the commercial space industry, recently in the spotlight due to Boeing’s recent failed crewed test of its Starliner capsule, and NASA’s decision to essentially use SpaceX to complete it instead.
Mission will boost Elon Musk’s plan to put humans on Mars
The Polaris Dawn mission is also a milestone in Elon Musk’s personal goal to colonize Mars, The Guardian noted. While he has talked about the ambition for years, often setting impossible deadlines, SpaceX has made real progress in recent years on its megarocket, Starship, and its aim of sending uncrewed missions to Mars by 2026 is more possible now than perhaps ever before. “Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years,” Musk recently wrote on X. Starship isn’t fully operational yet, Space.com noted, but its four test flights have seen consistent improvement.
A new era for the international space race
The launch of Polaris Dawn, a private American-led mission, is a boost for the US in its “space race” with China, and is reinvigorating the industry decades after Cold War-era hostilities with Russia — which inspired the Apollo missions — officially ended, The Guardian noted. NASA officials have frequently expressed concern in recent months at the speed of China’s advancements, most notably after a Chinese mission reached the far side of the moon in June in a historic first. It’s not an idle competition, an expert told the outlet: There are “complex, nuanced dynamics currently unfolding in space, in terms of the diverse and increasing number of actors and initiatives, and no clear end goal in sight.”