SpaceX has set July 31st as the launch date for Polaris Dawn, a commercial spaceflight mission that promises to make history with the first private spacewalk. This project is part of the Polaris Program, a private manned spaceflight program funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman. The news was announced on July 3rd in a tweet on Twitter, although neither Isaacman nor SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk have made any statements about it on social media.
The crew of Polaris Dawn will perform the first private spacewalk with spacesuits designed by SpaceX and will carry out several experiments in orbit. The mission will reach an altitude of approximately 435 miles above Earth, making it the highest manned flight since the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s. In comparison, the International Space Station orbits at about 250 miles.
This mission is the first of three within the Polaris Program, all funded and commanded by Isaacman. Jared Isaacman, also founder of Shift4, led and financed the launch of Inspiration4 in September 2021, which raised $250 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee. Isaacman plans to continue supporting this hospital with the Polaris missions.
The Polaris Dawn team includes retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Kidd” Poteet as the pilot, and mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both SpaceX operations engineers.
The complexity of the mission forced the launch to be postponed, which was initially scheduled for the end of 2022. The latest major delay occurred in February 2024, pushing the launch date to this summer. The Polaris Program explained on Twitter that “the additional time continues to provide the necessary development time to ensure both the completion of these mission objectives and a safe launch and return of Dragon and the crew.”
