SpaceX: Project Polaris

Apparently SpaceX's EVA (spacewalk) suit is almost done.  

The first mission is Polaris Dawn, which will try to orbit higher than Gemini 11 (1,368 km), do the first civilian spacewalk, and test Starlink laser communications to a crewed spacecraft.

The first and second flights would be a board Crew Dragon, the third aboard Starship.

(hint: open in an incognito tab)

https://t.co/9fowUWJqoS

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Jared Isaacman, who led the first all-private astronaut mission to orbit, has commissioned 3 more flights from SpaceX

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The first flight, which could come by the end of the year, will aim to send a crew of four farther than any other human spaceflight in 50 years and feature the first private-citizen spacewalk, Isaacman said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post. The second flight also would be aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the vehicle that NASA now relies on to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

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The first flight, which could come by the end of the year, will aim to send a crew of four farther than any other human spaceflight in 50 years and feature the first private-citizen spacewalk, Isaacman said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post. The second flight also would be aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the vehicle that NASA now relies on to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

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Program page,

https://polarisprogram.com/

First Polaris mission: Polaris Dawn

Date: Q4 2022 (targeting November)

Time: TBD

Pad: LC-39A

Vehicle: Crew Dragon (Resilience?)

Mission: dual spacewalk, very high orbit, test Starlink network for spacecraft laser communications.

Crew

Commander: Jared Isaacman

Pilot: Scott Poteet

Mission Specialist 1: Sarah Gillis

Mission Specialist 2: Anna Menon

Sarah Gillis: Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, oversees their astronaut training

Anna Menon: Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, manages development of crew operations, Mission Director, and CAPCOM.

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Concept image of a spacewalk, and the two SpaceX crew members

Tim Dodd interviews Jared Isaacman about Polaris Project

This is a good one

SpaceX EVA suit tidbits...

Polaris Dawn's launch is NET November 2022.

Shooting for an altitude of 1300 to 1400 km, 2 crew members will do a spacewalk in SpaceX's new EVA suit.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/10/spacex-training-begins-this-month-for-first-commercial-spacewalk-mission/

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SpaceX training begins this month for first commercial spacewalk mission

 

The four-person crew who will fly on the all-private Polaris Dawn mission — set to include the first commercial spacewalk and the debut of SpaceX’s extravehicular spacesuit — will begin training this month [...]

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The new suit will look more like SpaceX’s in-cabin pressure suits than the NASA’s older, bulky spacesuits used for excursions outside the International Space Station, Isaacman said.

 

“You’re adding lots of redundancies in the suit that don’t exist today, since it’s more last line of defense,” [...]

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“You have a new visor, new seals, then mobility, joints everywhere for increased mobility and dexterity in the fingers and such. I think, visually, it will be more along the lines of what it currently looks like, but very much like a new suit.”

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Polaris Dawn 1 is targeting  launch in November, 2022. 

Polaris Dawn 1 now December

https://spacenews.com/december-launch-planned-for-polaris-dawn/

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December launch planned for Polaris Dawn

 

WASHINGTON —The privately funded Polaris Program is planning its first crewed launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in December, a mission that will include the first spacewalk on a private mission.

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The mission has three major goals. One is to fly Crew Dragon in an orbit with an apogee of 1,400 kilometers, the highest for a crewed mission in Earth orbit. Another is to test communications with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

 

The third, and perhaps most ambitious, is a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA),[...]

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Menon said there are more than 35 experiments planned for the five-day mission, many focused on the elevated radiation environment of the higher orbit. 

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The Space Telescope Science Institute is now involved in the NASA-SpaceX Hubble servicing mission study. This could encompass simply reboosting Hubble to give it a longer service life, or a full servicing mission to also replace and update systems using Crew Dragon.

SpaceX EVA spacesuit update...

https://twitter.com/rookisaacman/status/1615120543983996929