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Humanity is about to have its first commercial spacewalk!

After SpaceX officially announced the plan but postponed it several times over the past two years, the time has finally been finalized.

Early morning of August 26, local time, that is, a week later, SpaceX's first spacewalk mission will be launched in Florida, heading to a place 10 kilometers from Earth.About 1400 kmflight track.

This is the second after NASA's Apollo program.The farthest place humans have reached in more than 50 years。

Musk said: This will be an epic feat.

The mission is expected to last up to five days.Jared IsaacmanHe is the commander of this mission.

People who are familiar with SpaceX and Musk are no strangers. He also provided manpower, money, and labor for the previous all-private space flight mission. This is his second space flight.

In addition, his long-term partner, retired Air Force pilot Scott Poteet, served as pilot, and two SpaceX employees, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, served as medical officer and mission specialist respectively.

Netizens expressed their expectations.

SpaceX's first spacewalk mission

The name of this mission isNorth Star Dawn Mission，Polaris Dawn。

This is the first of three missions in Jared Isaacman's human spaceflight program, Project Polaris, which aims to push the limits of private spaceflight.

Isaacman also shared their detailed five-day itinerary.

The first day's work was mainly to find the time when the risk of micrometeorite orbital debris was the lowest, so as to determine the launch time of the Polaris Dawn to an altitude of 1,400 kilometers.

After arriving at the 190 km x 1200 km orbit, the crew will conduct a comprehensive check.

Isaacman said they plan to choose the lowest altitude for the crossing, because the entire mission will cross the South Atlantic Anomaly two or three times at high altitude, and the radiation level will be very high, which is almost the entire radiation load of this mission, equivalent to staying on the International Space Station for three months.

On the second day, they will complete some scientific research, including about 40 experiments; in addition, they will also prepare for spacewalks, such as testing extravehicular space suits.

On the third day, we had extravehicular activities.

So who will perform this crucial spacewalk?

Of course, it will be him (no surprise at all). In addition, mission specialist Sarah Gillis will also participate in the extravehicular activity.

The remaining two stayed in the spacecraft to provide support.

However, Isaacman said that four people will actually do a spacewalk because the spacecraft will also be in a vacuum state. For this reason, they have conducted a lot of training before to adapt to the space environment.

The spacewalk is expected to last two hours and they call it "a testing and development process."

In a limited time, we hope to learn as much as possible about space suits and operating procedures, and study the effects of space radiation and space flight on human health.

A large number of cameras have been installed inside and outside the space capsule, and the entire process will be broadcast live, so you can take a look.

In order to achieve this extravehicular activity, SpaceX specially designed a new EVA spacesuit (EVA stands for extravehicular activity), which was first unveiled in May this year.

It evolved from the IVA space suit (intravelinally active space suit, for emergency use), and has been upgraded in terms of materials, manufacturing technology and joint design.

The new coating material of the 3D printed helmet can cope with the strong sunlight. The helmet is also equipped with a head-up display and a camera to provide real-time pressure, temperature and relative humidity information of the space suit.

In addition, new thermal management textiles and flame-retardant materials are borrowed from the Falcon rocket's intermediate stage and the Dragon spacecraft's torso.

It is worth mentioning that this mission will also be the first manned test of the Dragon spacecraft for interconnected communications through Starlink. If successful, it may reduce communication delays and increase data bandwidth for manned space missions.

It has been postponed several times before

In fact, the plan was announced as early as 2022, a few months after Jared Isaacman completed the first all-private space travel mission.

The launch was planned for the end of the year on a Falcon 9 rocket. The crew had already been confirmed at that time, and they were the same four people now.

But it has been postponed several times since then due to various reasons.

First, the launch date was postponed to March 2023 due to technical problems with the design of the EVA spacesuit and SpaceX's testing of the inter-satellite laser communication link.

As a result, in February 2023 (one month before the original launch date), the launch date was postponed to mid-2023, and then postponed again to April and July 2024, and now to August.

Although it has been postponed three times this month, it seems that there are no major problems. Now the official announcement is within a week, which seems to be very feasible.

Okay, now it’s time to start looking forward to it.

Reference Links:
[1]https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1825318147974373766
[2]https://spacenews.com/spacex-reveals-eva-suit-design-as-polaris-dawn-mission-approaches/
[3]https://www.spacex.com/updates/