Although government astronauts have conducted hundreds of spacewalks over the last 60 years, no private citizen has ever undertaken one.
“This is important because we are going to get to the Moon and Mars one day, and we’re going to have to get out of our vehicles, and out of the safety of the habitat to explore and build and repair things,” Isaacman said. SpaceX has already said it is working on a second generation of the suit for operations on the Moon and Mars.
I’m super excited by the ambition of the Polaris program. Dragon EVA, potential Hubble repair mission, and first crewed launch and landing of Starship. Quite a bit to look forward to.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Commanded and funded by private astronaut Jared Isaacman, the mission seeks to test new technologies that will further the expansion of humanity into space.
“Our first objective is to travel farther from the Earth and the last time humans walked on the Moon with Apollo 17, more than 50 years ago,” Isaacman said during an online chat hosted by the social network site X.
After liftoff from Florida, Isaacman said Dragon will complete seven orbits with a maximum altitude of about 1,400 km, which is about twice as high as any crewed mission has flown since 1972.
Besides Isaacman, who flew to space for the first time in September 2021 as the commander of the all-civilian Inspiration 4, the crew of this mission includes a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and experienced pilot named Scott Poteet, and two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Stu Keech, the vice president of Dragon at SpaceX, said a structure named “Skywalker” has been attached to the spacecraft near the hatch as a mobility aid.
On his first two spaceflights, Isaacman sought out crewmates from diverse backgrounds and made charitable donations a major component of each mission.
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