SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission just made history. But the most dangerous part is yet to | CNN

CNN
–

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission launched early Tuesday, launching a four-person crew of civilian astronauts into orbit. And hours later they made history: they reached the highest point in orbit around the Earth and surpassed the record set in the early days of NASA.

The company confirmed that the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that carried the crew reached the summit of 1,400.7 kilometers (870 miles) at 9:19 pm ET on Tuesday.

That distance surpassed the record set by NASA’s 1966 Gemini 11 mission, which reached 853 miles (1,373 kilometers) during its orbit around Earth.

NASA’s Apollo missions traveled far but did not enter a traditional orbit around Earth. They were intended for the moon, which is a quarter of a kilometer away from our planet. The Polaris Dawn mission also marks the furthest space mission by a human since the last Apollo mission in 1972 – and the farthest space mission by a woman.

In a daily update posted on social media on Tuesday evening, the Polaris Dawn program confirmed the four passengers aboard the spacecraft, “enjoying their first meal in orbit before entering the first science and research arena and the Starlink tests, which lasted 3.5 hours.”

Starlink is SpaceX’s commercial satellite network that already serves customers on the ground. Among several other important goals set for Polaris Dawn, the crew is testing Starlink’s space-based communications capabilities, a capability that could be critical to future missions.

SpaceX and the Polaris Dawn crew may be celebrating their milestone, but the most dangerous endeavor is yet to come for this five-day mission — designed to push the limits of commercial space travel and help to test the technologies that SpaceX can use for deep space travel. the universe.

As early as Thursday morning, the Polaris Dawn team – which includes Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, the sponsor of the project; his best friend and former US Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet; and SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis – will attempt to launch the first commercial space shuttle.

The milestone event, which will begin on the crew’s third day in space, is expected to occur as the crew orbits 435 kilometers (700 miles) above Earth.

Isaacman, Menon, Poteet and Gillis will be exposed to empty space when their Crew Dragon capsule is depressurized and a circular hatch is opened. And two crew members, Gillis and Isaacman, will fly out within about two hours of the vehicle being left with the door open in the vast area.

The crew will be protected in the unforgiving vacuum only by SpaceX’s new Extravehicular Activity – or EVA – suits. The space suits were designed and developed in 2 ½ years, which is incredibly fast by space standards.

In comparison, NASA has spent more than a decade trying to find worn space suits inside the International Space Station. Those suits were made 40 years ago.

The Crew Dragon capsule already puts the crew through a long “pre-breathing” process, which prepares the astronauts’ bodies for space travel. It works by gradually purging nitrogen from the workers’ blood so that the gas does not flow into their blood when the pressure changes inside the vehicle.

The pre-exhalation process aims to avoid decompression sickness – a similar and potentially fatal disease that smokers can face if they try to quit too soon.

The pre-breathing protocol that the Polaris Dawn crew is performing is not entirely the same as that performed on the International Earth Station. The space station has special airlocks where astronauts can go through a quick pre-breather before starting their spacewalks. It only takes a few hours.

The first breathing method of the Polaris Dawn crew, however, will last about 45 hours, Gillis told CNN, as the oxygen in the chamber increases slowly as the pressure decreases.

“What’s really cool about this situation (before breathing) is that, in many ways, it’s less dangerous than the conditions on the space station,” Gillis told CNN. It’s like opening a can of soda pop – and you want to open the can (and don’t) and one of the bubbles comes out because the pressure outside the can is equal to what’s inside.”

By lowering the pressure inside the Crew Dragon, Gillis said, and wearing their spacesuits such that the environmental pressure equals the suit’s pressure — crew members can reduce any risk of unexploited bubbles. be wanted.

The biggest challenge comes after the end of space: to close the gap in the Crew Dragon capsule, get the pressure back to normal and return to Earth safely.

“You should be nervous about (this mission),” former NASA astronaut and SpaceX consultant Garrett Reisman told CNN in August. “Whenever you try something for the first time there are big risks. I’ll feel better when they get back inside and close the hatch.”

Correction: A previous version of this article included an incorrect photo of the SpaceX EVA suit. The image has been replaced with one that shows the correct suit.