Polaris Dawn team arrive in Florida ahead of next week’s launch

On Monday, the four members of the Polaris Dawn crew arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center ahead of its launch next week. The crew will finish up their training at SpaceX’s facilities at the cape as they prepare to push what is possible by commercial spaceflight.

Arriving in three Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets and two Aero L-39s, the crew and its support team arrived at Kennedy Space Center and hosted a press conference like we’d normally see from NASA sponsored flights. The crew has spent the last couple years preparing for this mission and they are now in the last week of training before their five day mission.

The Polaris Dawn crew, commanded by billionaire Jared Issacman, is the first mission for the Polaris Program. Future missions include another Falcon 9 flight building on what they learn on this mission and the first crewed flight of Starship.

The rest of the Polaris Dawn crew consists of former Air Force Thunderbird Scott Poteet and SpaceXers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. Outside of Issacman, this will be everyone’s first spaceflight but all have supported space operations during their time at SpaceX or on the Inspiration4 flight in 2021.

Issacman and Gillis will be the two that will test SpaceX’s newly developed EVA suit outside the spacecraft. Meanwhile, Poteet and Menon will be inside the depressurized spacecraft, supporting the EVA.

Polaris Dawn will also fly higher than any crewed missions since Apollo 17, reaching up to 1,400 km in altitude on the second day. The flight will then lower to a peak of 700 km for its EVA.

SpaceX seems to be doing its own thing when it comes to developing commercial opportunities outside of LEO. While other companies work within government contracts, SpaceX took its EVA suit under its own development program and paid for it themselves according to Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability. It believed the suit’s development would be useful for the company’s future goals of putting humans on the Moon and Mars.

Launch for Polaris Dawn is set for Monday August 26, with a window opening up at 3:38 A.M. ET. The time Polaris Dawn launches will be important as it will have to coincide with optimal spacewalking conditions on the third day. The crew will begin preparing for the EVA one hour into orbit.