by The Polaris Dawn crew completed a record-breaking commercial spaceflight and packed up Saturday for reentry and a predawn splashdown early Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico northwest of Key West, Florida.
The Crew Dragon capsule, carrying billionaire Jared Isaacman, pilot Scott Poteet and company engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, is flying on a southwest-to-northeast trajectory and is expected to fire its braking rockets to deorbit at 2:40 a.m. EDT Sunday.
As it enters the perceptible atmosphere, the Crew Dragon’s heat shield will withstand temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit before the ship slows enough to deploy its parachutes. Splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near Dry Tortugas, Florida, is expected at about 3:36 a.m.
A SpaceX recovery ship is stationed nearby to recover the capsule and help crew members exit the spacecraft so they can undergo routine medical checks after landing before flying to land by helicopter and meeting with family and friends.
The Polaris Dawn mission, funded by Isaacman in collaboration with SpaceX, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center early Tuesday on a Falcon 9 rocket. Right off the bat, the crew set a new altitude record for a manned spacecraft in Earth orbit, reaching an apogee of 875 miles.
That’s farther from Earth than anyone has flown since the last Apollo trip to the Moon in 1972.
Early Thursday, the crew set another record when Isaacman and Gillis took turns hovering just outside the capsule’s hatch. the first non-governmental spacewalk ever carried out.
“We all have a lot to do at home, but from here, Earth really does look like a perfect world,” marveled Isaacman, enjoying the spectacular view of the boundless planet below him as he floated through the hatch of the Crew Dragon.
The goal of the short trips was to test the pressure suits developed by SpaceX in the harsh environment of space, assessing their mobility and checking the movement of the wrists, elbows and shoulder joints to help engineers design improved versions for future flights to the moon and ultimately Mars.
In addition to extensive biomedical research, the crew also tested the laser communications technology that connects Crew Dragon to the Starlink constellation of commercial internet relay satellites.
“Earlier today, the Polaris Dawn crew discussed the @Starlink space lasers with SpaceX teams over coffee and donuts,” SpaceX said. published on X-Saturday. “During the more than 40-minute uninterrupted video call, Dragon completed half an orbit over the east coast of the United States, cut southeast across the Atlantic Ocean, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope.”
At the beginning of the mission, Gillis, an accomplished violist, took part in a kind of international concert, playing the “Star Wars” song “Rey’s Theme” by composer John Williams, accompanied by young musicians from the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Sweden and Uganda.
The Polaris Dawn mission is the first of three missions that entrepreneur and philanthropist Isaacman is planning in collaboration with Musk.
The second flight will be another Crew Dragon mission, while the third will be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s giant Super Heavy Starship rocket, currently under development in Texas.
It is not known how much Isaacman is paying for the flights or how much SpaceX itself has raised.
Polaris Dawn is SpaceX’s fifth commercial Crew Dragon flight into orbit and its 14th, including NASA missions carrying crew members to the International Space Station. The California-based rocket maker has now launched 54 men and women into orbit since crewed flights began in May 2020.
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