Polaris Dawn crew recently wore SpaceX‘s newly developed EVA spacesuit for the first time in a vacuum environment and performed a series of spacesuit acceptance rests in preparation for a spacewalk during their upcoming mission.
What Happened: The tests, which included familiarising with how the spacesuit performs in a vacuum, marked the final significant test milestone for the spacesuit. The spacesuits are upgraded versions of the intravehicular spacesuits designed for extravehicular activity.
The testing of the spacesuits was held at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas between June 24 and 28 using a historic chamber facility used to test spacesuits during the Gemini and Apollo space programs.
"It was a profound feeling for our crew to conduct operations in the same vacuum chambers that supported the Gemini and Apollo programs in the 1960s," the upcoming Mission’s Commander and Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman said about the spacesuit testing experience.
Why It Matters: The Polaris program is a private human spaceflight program founded by Isaacman. It will consist of up to three human spaceflight missions, the first of which is Polaris Dawn.
The Polaris Dawn mission is expected to launch no earlier than July 31 on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and the Polaris Crew composed of four including Isaacman, Kidd Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon will spend up to five days in orbit.
The mission aims to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown and will also test Starlink laser-based communications in space. One of the key objectives of the mission is to conduct a spacewalk nearly 435 miles above the Earth, marking the first-ever commercial spacewalk with the help of the SpaceX-designed EVA spacesuit.
SpaceX’s Launch Halt: Last week, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 launch vehicle with 20 Starlink satellites from California which were deployed in a lower-than-expected orbit owing to an issue with the rocket’s second-stage engine. Though the company subsequently tried to contact the satellites to raise their orbits, the attempts failed. The satellites will now re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and "fully demise," SpaceX informed on Friday.
Space X added it would perform a full investigation in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to determine the cause of the incident and take corrective measures in the future.
The company, known for its high launch cadence and headed by billionaire Elon Musk, has not launched any other mission since then.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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