SpaceX launched its Polaris Dawn mission: why it marked a milestone for private space exploration

The space exploration continues to improve day by day and the company SpaceXowned by billionaire Elon Muskkeep marking milestones in this field. His last mission, baptized as Polaris Dawntook off from the successfully NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida this Tuesday at 5:23 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

The launch occurred after several delays caused by different reasons in late August. Among the milestones that this mission will achieve, it will be the first time that someone who is not an astronaut, in this case the millionaire Jared Isaacman, take a spacewalk.

The successful launch of the SpaceX mission

After 15 days of various delays, finally the Polaris Dawn mission was able to take off successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Floridaaboard a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX broadcast the event live via Xthe social media platform owned by Musk.

This successful launch attempt came after Several problems will hamper the Polaris Dawn crew’s efforts to launch in late August. From a problem with the ground equipment at the launch site that delayed the planned date by 24 hours, to weather forecasts, the mission was prevented from take off repeatedly.

But finally, the team on board left Earth successfully in the early hours of Tuesday. In total, four astronauts highly qualified is the team that will be in charge of this mission.

The group is led by billionaire Jared Isaacmanthe mission commander, who previously commanded the Inspiration4 mission in 2021. He is accompanied by former US Air Force pilot, Scott Poteetwho will act as the mission’s pilot; Sarah Gillisprincipal engineer for space operations at SpaceX, and Anna Menonmedical officer and chief space operations engineer.

First of all, the capsule of SpaceX aims to take crew to record altitude for an orbit around the Earth. In this way, it will seek to surpass by 32 kilometers the milestone established by NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966, which reached 1,373 kilometers.

But perhaps the most significant thing is planned to happen on the third day of this mission. Next Thursday, the civilian crew, while orbiting at a lower altitude of about 700 kilometers above Earth, will attempt to take a historic spacewalk.

Elon Musk gave a glimpse of what mass travel to Mars will be like

Prior to the launch of Polaris Dawn, Musk previewed some of the features that his technology company SpaceX is considering for future space travel. planet Mars. Thus, through his personal account on the social network X he stated that “ SpaceX created the first fully reusable rocket stage and, much more importantly, made reuse economically viable“.

In this way, the billionaire highlighted a particular problem facing expansion to other planets in our solar system. “That life is multiplanetary fundamentally has a problem, which is the cost per ton for transfers to Mars.” And then he added: “Currently, it costs around US$1,000 million per ton of payload to the surface of Mars. This figure needs to be improved US$100,000 per tonne to build a self-sustaining city there, so the technology needs to be 10,000 times better. Extremely difficult, but not impossible“.

“The first Starships to Mars will be launched in 2 years, when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be unmanned to test the reliability of an intact landing on Mars. If those landings go well, the first manned flights to Mars will take place in 4 years,” the businessman detailed through X.

Finally, in his message Musk pointed out that “The rate of flights will grow exponentially from therewith the aim of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years” and stressed the importance of conquering our galaxy: “Being multiplanetary will greatly increase the probability of conscious lifesince we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on a single planet“.