SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Private Mission Targets December Launch

The first private spacewalk in the world is beginning to have a definite launch date.

Polaris Dawn commander and tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman revealed that the Polaris Dawn mission is launching sometime in December, further specifying the mission's launch date, per Space News.

Isaacman made the announcement at an air show in late July during the Polaris Dawn's break from its high-performance jet training.

Polaris Dawn December Launch Date Details

Issacman mentioned at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Air Show at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on July 29 that Polaris Dawn's launch will most likely be at the end of the year, specifically in December.

The announcement was right on time as we're nearing the third quarter of 2022. Polaris Dawn's official website mentioned that the launch would be no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022, meaning that the launch may happen between October and December of this year.

The mission, which is a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX, will be using the latter's Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, according to Space.com.

Thanks to the impending launch, Isaacman, and his team have been training hard to prepare for the mission's lunch day.

As previously stated, Isaacman made his statement about Polaris Dawn's launch date in between the team's high-performance jet training.

"High performance & high consequence flying is part of our training [...] plus max fun," Isaacman said on his official Twitter page. "Thankful for a great team that pulled this together."

Isaacman's team consists of retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet and SpaceX Lead Space Operations Engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.

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Poteet will serve as the mission's pilot, while Gillis and Anna Menon will serve as the mission's specialists.

Menon will also serve as the team's medical officer in case of injury and other medical problems.

Isaacman is not the only one publicizing the team's training for the Polaris Dawn launch. Gillis has also posted pictures of the team's training since they first started doing so on her Twitter page.

Gillis' pictures show that the team underwent basic medical and scuba training as well as non-verbal communication and buddy support in late May under SpaceX.

The Polaris Dawn Mission Details

The Polaris Dawn mission is the first of three separate crewed launches funded by Isaacman. For this particular mission, SpaceX aims to conduct research in orbit to advance humanity's understanding of human health during long-duration spaceflights in the future.

As such, the research crew members will perform research on things that are not limited to using ultrasound to monitor, detect, and quantify venous gas emboli connected to the human prevalence of decompression sickness and finding out how space radiation affects human biological systems.

To do its planned scientific research, SpaceX partnered with the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Space Technologies Lab at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. It also teamed up with Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the US Air Force Academy to do said research.

However, the mission's most significant contribution to the scientific community is being the first commercial spacewalk and testing Starlink lased-based communications in space.