First Commercial Success Of Polaris Dawn Spacewalk By SpaceX

The first commercial success of the Polaris Dawn spacewalk is the most talked about topic nowadays. The billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gills were the first ones to complete the mission.

Jared Isaacman is the first non-professional person to complete the five-day trip. A critical and risky trip was taken to gather some valuable data, test the limitations of non-professionals travelling to space and explore high-altitude space travels.

(Also read: SpaceX Crew Launches Groundbreaking First-Ever Private Civilian Spacewalk)

It was a much shorter trip than the rest of NASA’s trips that lasted for weeks or months for the same purposes as gathering data, conducting experiments and even re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere safely. This milestone was meant to be for five days only.

The Polaris Dawn spacewalk mission was initially meant to launch in late August but was delayed due to safety reasons. However, with the addition of other two crew members, former Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and another SpaceX engineer Anna Menon gathered as a four-member team to fly off to space.

Previously, several astronauts have travelled to space setting new limits for greater space tests and data-gathering purposes. However, this was a new milestone with a non-professional billionaire who flew farthest after the Apollo 17 mission to the moon in 1972.

Isaacmoan said after observing Earth from the other side of space in his Dragon spacecraft on Thursday, “Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world”.

Reasons for the first commercial success of the spacewalking mission

The reason for its first commercial success is the presence of Jared Isaacman and Elon Musk’s funded aerospace company, SpaceX. There were previous three Polaris Dawn missions but this was a big leap.

The first historic private spacewalk let SpaceX understand the dynamics of its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars for which the need for technology and skills would be entirely different.

Elon Musk thought that would provide a test example of the spacecraft and their effectiveness in providing humans the circumstances for survival in extreme space conditions.

The four team members noticed that passing through Van Allen radiation bells was one of the most critical parts of the mission. The region is highly radioactive which was detected for the first time in a 1958 US space mission. It is predicted that their high charge can damage several parts of the space machine to an extreme extent.

The spacecraft successfully managed to withstand the radiation and made its way to the farthest point in their journey.

The total time of Polaris Dawn spacewalk was two hours during which the crewmates, Isaacson and Gills came out of the vessel for 15-20 minutes and the remaining members remained inside the cabin to monitor their walk and body conditions outside in space.

Another reason for its success was the testing of the SpaceX spacesuit design. The suit was designed in two and a half years after passing several tests. They needed to be made with careful amendments so that space exploration standards were met to an exceptional point.

The space suit was a key champion of the entire mission since its inexpensive design and reliability made it a crucial part of human survival in space that could lead to mass human colonisation to Mars if needed.

The final days of the mission were focused on testing motion sickness and communications via SpaceX Starlink satellites. This was done so as to check whether without the internet, which is now a mandatory tool for communications on Earth, communicating in space could be made possible.