SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Mission to Conduct First Private Spacewalk on August 26

TapTechNews August 8th news, according to the news released by the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission team on social media X, the launch time of this manned orbital flight mission has now been determined to be August 26. This mission will conduct the first-ever private spacewalk, which is of great significance.

The Polaris Dawn mission will carry four crew members to be launched into Earth orbit on SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and its launch vehicle is the Falcon 9. The commander is billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the pilot is retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Kidd Poteet, and the mission experts are SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.

TapTechNews noticed that unlike previous missions docking with the International Space Station, the Polaris Dawn mission will send the four into Earth orbit. In addition to the planned private spacewalk, this mission will also create another historical record: The spacecraft will reach a height of approximately 1120 kilometers (about 700 miles) to orbit the Earth, which is the farthest humans have been from the Earth since the Apollo program.

The Polaris Dawn is the first manned mission among the three manned missions planned in the Polaris Program, which was originally scheduled to be launched in 2022, but has been postponed many times due to its complexity and pioneering nature.

Currently, SpaceX also has a manned spacecraft - the Crew Dragon 8 currently in orbit. This spacecraft carried four astronauts to the International Space Station in March this year to perform a six-month mission. They are about to return to Earth, and then the Crew Dragon 9 astronauts will take over, the latter of which is planned to be launched on September 24.