Aug 26 (Askume) – SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission conducted a spacewalk on Thursday, with two astronauts flying from an Earth-orbiting capsule aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft connected to the vacuum of space.
The mission , which includes four astronauts using SpaceX’s new spacesuits and redesigned spacecraft, launched on Tuesday after being delayed for more than a week due to some technical issues .
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, was the first to lift off at about 6:52 a.m. ET (1052 GMT), followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, becoming the first two non-governmental individuals to travel into space.
The spacewalk officially ends at 8 a.m. Eastern time.
The details of the astronauts are as follows:
Jared Isaacman
Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments (FOUR.N) and an experienced pilot, is commanding the Polaris Dawn mission and will co-star in space with Sarah Gillis, one of two spacewalkers to perform a spacewalk outside the vehicle.
He is funding the mission under the Polaris program, but declined to disclose the total cost, which is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
This mission will be his second mission to space, having previously led the first all-civilian Inspiration4 mission around Earth in 2021, which he organised and funded in partnership with SpaceX.
After Polaris Dawn, Isaacman plans to fly two more missions under the Polaris program — another flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, followed by a flight of Starship , a next-generation rocket being developed by SpaceX. He has not yet announced crews or dates for those flights.
Sarah Gillis
Gillis has trained astronauts and will now become an astronaut herself. She earned an engineering degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and began an internship at SpaceX in 2015, where she is now a senior space operations engineer. Her responsibilities include training astronauts in safety and flight operations.
Gillis is a Polaris Dawn mission specialist and has provided operational training to NASA astronauts on multiple missions, including the International Space Station Dragon missions Demo-2 and Crew-1 and the 2021 Inspiration4 mission.
Scott Caan
Poteet, the Polaris Dawn mission pilot, has a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force and has logged more than 3,200 hours of flying in a variety of aircraft, including F-16 fighter jets.
Poteat became involved in private spaceflight when he served as mission director for the Inspiration4 mission.
The New Hampshire resident’s role on the latest mission ranges from piloting the spacecraft to assisting with spacewalks, providing communications support and assisting in mission control.
According to LinkedIn, Poteat is serving as vice president of strategy at Isaacman’s Shift4 company until 2022. Until 2020, he served as director of business development for Draken International, a defense contractor founded by Isaacman, before selling a majority stake in the company to Blackstone in 2019.
let me go
Menon is the project’s mission specialist and medical officer and SpaceX’s chief space operations engineer, responsible for managing the development of crew operations and ensuring astronauts follow procedures and protocols during the B mission.
The former NASA biomedical flight controller will be responsible for the health and well-being of the crew during the Polaris Dawn mission, monitoring their physiological responses and providing medical care as needed.
He holds a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.
Menon’s husband, Anil Menon, was a SpaceX flight surgeon and is currently a NASA astronaut in training.
