All-Civilian Polaris Dawn Crew Travels Farthest From Earth In Over 50 Years, Since NASA's Apollo Program

Elon Musk‘s spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX said on Tuesday that the all-civilian Polaris Dawn mission has touched its maximum target altitude of 870 miles, marking the farthest humans have ventured from Earth in over 50 years.

What Happened: “Achievement unlocked – apogee 1,400.7 km,” SpaceX said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Achievement unlocked – apogee 1,400.7 km

Forward bulkhead Draco firing during burn 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Z7kUTcA2CH

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 11, 2024

The International Space Station (ISS), in comparison, travels to a maximum altitude of only about 286 miles.

Touching the altitude of 870 miles was one of the key objectives of the Polaris Dawn mission. It is the furthest humans have traveled in space since the completion of NASA’s Apollo program in 1972.

Days Ahead: Now that the company has cleared its altitude milestone, it is now looking to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday nearly 435 miles above the Earth.

While space agency NASA routinely conducts extravehicular activities, no private player has attempted it before, making this a landmark mission for SpaceX and commercial spaceflight companies.

The crew will also conduct several research and science experiments on the mission.

Why It Matters: Polaris Dawn is the first of up to three human spaceflight missions planned under the Polaris program founded by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launched the mission to space from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at around 5:23 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft and the all-civilian Polaris Crew composed of four including its mission commander Isaacman, Kidd Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon will spend up to five days in orbit before returning to Earth. While Isaacman and Poteet worked together at Shift4, Gillis and Menon are SpaceX engineers.

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Photo courtesy: Polaris Dawn