SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission is a step forward for private spaceflight, even as it demonstrates the same capabilities that government space agencies have had for decades. The mission included the first-ever spacewalk, also called extravehicular activity or EVA, carried out by private individuals rather than government-employed astronauts.
This spacewalk was particularly risky. Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ship does not have an airlock, so performing the EVA involved evacuating the entire capsule of air before two of the crew members, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis do not venture into the vacuum of space. space. Not only were there no government-trained astronauts on the crew, but it was also the first time that SpaceX’s new spacesuits and the spacecraft itself had been tested in this way.
In itself, this may not seem impressive. After all, astronauts routinely perform hours-long EVAs on the ISS for decades. Even opening an entire crew capsule in space had been done before, and it was relatively common during NASA’s Gemini program in the 1960s.
So you could say that SpaceX is resurrecting old achievements – but that’s not the whole story. “When you do something for the first time, it doesn’t matter if other people have done it before. It’s still the first time for you”, said Laura Forczykindependent consultant in the space industry. “SpaceX has never done this before, so they have to start from scratch and take baby steps because it’s the safest thing to do.”
The September 12 EVA went smoothly, although its qualification as a spacewalk drew some criticism from the media and public because the astronauts did not completely exit the capsule. Instead, each participant pulled their torso out of the trapdoor in what is called a “standing spacewalk” for a few minutes. “That’s maybe the only thing that didn’t work, the communication with the public,” says Forczyk. “But it wasn’t a public mission – it was a private mission that didn’t need to communicate to the public exactly what was happening and what was planned.”
The main objective of the spacewalk was to test the new suits. a new EVA suit has not been used in decades and NASA’s current supply is limited and aging. “SpaceX has now demonstrated that these suits are safe in microgravity, so the big question now is whether SpaceX intends to sell spacesuits to NASA,” says Forczyk. If so, even this relatively simple test of a standing EVA could help overcome a major obstacle in human spaceflight.
In addition to testing the suit, crew members also participate in a series of health experiments to determine the effects of space travel on the human body. These range from tracking bone and muscle loss during flight, which is a common problem for space travelers, to imaging their brains and other organs immediately after explorers return to Earth.
“Civilian space missions like this can really help us advance the study of human health during spaceflight,” says Rihana Bokhari at the Translational Research Institute for Space Health in Texas. Part of the reason is that more private space missions will mean more space missions in general, which will allow researchers to collect more data.
“Another difference we encounter is that these subjects are not fully healthy government astronauts. So we are collecting a diverse health data set that will prepare for and help create a future where more people, including civilians, to live and work in space,” explains Bokhari. .
The spacewalkers of the Polaris Dawn mission are far from ordinary people – Isaacman has already been to space once and Gillis is SpaceX’s chief astronaut trainer – but they are the closest to civilians to ever perform an EVA. “They risked their lives and everything went well,” says Forczyk. “Because SpaceX has proven they can do the first steps of an EVA, I imagine they will continue to push the boundaries and innovate.”
The spacecraft will return to Earth and crash land off the coast of Florida in the coming days, followed by a wave of research and evaluation of the travelers, their capsule and their suits. The next flight in SpaceX’s Polaris program is not yet planned, after NASA refused to allow the mission to proceed. maintaining the Hubble space telescope. But the company’s capabilities are growing rapidly, and it may only be a matter of time before it catches up with the government space agencies that have been the sole superpowers in space for so long.