The Polaris Dawn crew wrapped up a record-breaking commercial spaceflight and packed up Saturday for reentry and a pre-dawn splashdown early Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico northwest of Key West, Florida.
Flying along a southwest-northeast trajectory, the Crew Dragon capsule, carrying billionaire Jared Isaacman, pilot Scott Poteet and company engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, is scheduled to fire its braking rockets at 2:40 a.m. EDT Sunday to leave orbit.
As it re-enters the discernible atmosphere, the Crew Dragon’s protective heat shield will withstand temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees Celsius before the ship slows enough to deploy its parachutes. Splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near Dry Tortugas, Florida, is scheduled for around 3:36 a.m.
SpaceX
A SpaceX recovery ship is stationed nearby to retrieve the capsule and help crew members exit the spacecraft for routine medical checks after landing before a helicopter flight to shore and reunion with family and friends.
The Polaris Dawn mission, funded by Isaacman, in cooperation with SpaceX, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center atop a Falcon 9 rocket early Tuesday. Upon launch, the crew set a new altitude record for a manned spacecraft in Earth orbit, reaching a high point, or apogee, of 875 miles.
It is the furthest distance from Earth that anyone has traveled since the last Apollo trip to the Moon in 1972.
On Thursday morning, the crew set another record when Isaacman and Gillis took turns floating just outside the capsule’s hatch. the first non-governmental spacewalk never conducted.
“Back home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth really does look like a perfect world,” Isaacman marveled, taking in a spectacular view of the borderless planet below as he floated through the Crew Dragon’s hatch.
The goal of the brief excursions was to test SpaceX’s pressure suits in the harsh environment of space, assessing their mobility and checking the movement of the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints to help engineers design improved versions for future flights to the moon and, eventually, Mars.
In addition to a comprehensive suite of biomedical research, the crew also tested laser communications technology that connects the Crew Dragon to the Starlink constellation of commercial internet relay satellites.
“Early this morning, via @Starlink space lasers, the Polaris Dawn crew chatted with SpaceX teams over coffee and donuts,” SpaceX said. published Saturday X. “During the 40-minute-plus uninterrupted video call, Dragon completed a half-orbit over the U.S. East Coast, cutting southeast over the Atlantic Ocean and rounding the Cape of Good Hope.”
Earlier in the mission, Gillis, an accomplished violist, participated in what amounted to an international concert, performing “Star Wars” composer John Williams’ “Rey’s Theme” with young musicians in the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Sweden and Uganda.
The Polaris Dawn mission is the first of three planned by Isaacman, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, in cooperation with Musk.
The second flight will be another Crew Dragon mission while the third will be the first piloted flight of SpaceX’s massive Super Heavy-Starship rocket, currently under development in Texas.
It’s unclear how much Isaacman is paying for the flights or how much SpaceX itself has funded.
Polaris Dawn is SpaceX’s fifth commercial Crew Dragon flight to 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 human spaceflight began in May 2020.
