SpaceX will fly as many as three private missions in coming years, including its first spacewalk outside a Dragon crew vessel, financed in part by the same technology billionaire who flew in space for three days last year with the company.
The launches will also include the first people to ride aboard SpaceX’s newest Starship rocket, Jared Isaacman said Monday in a statement. He plans to use the flights, which he’s calling the Polaris Program, to again help raise money and awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., as the company is formally known, is targeting its first Starship orbital test flight this year, with plans for multiple tests and satellite-deployment missions before it’s ready to carry people.
The new mission’s first flight aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, Polaris Dawn, may occur as soon as this year’s fourth quarter, Isaacman said, without giving a time frame for the full series or saying how much he’s spending to finance them.
"The Polaris Program is an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through the use of innovative technology here on Earth,” Isaacman, the 39-year-old founder and chief executive officer of payment processor Shift4 Payments Inc., said in the statement.
He will be joined on the missions by two SpaceX engineers -- Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon -- and a former Air Force test pilot, Scott "Kidd” Poteet. All four worked closely together for the Inspiration4 flight that Isaacman led in September 2021. That effort raised more than $240 million for St. Jude.
Isaacman told the Washington Post on Monday that he paid less than a widely reported $200 million price for the 2021 Crew Dragon flight, although he has declined to reveal the cost.
The Polaris flights are designed to test new SpaceX-designed spacesuits, which will allow activities outside the Dragon. The company has begun early work on the type of suits that will be required for longer missions on Mars and the moon.
The Polaris crew also will be the first to test laser-based communications for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, which will be key to the company’s plans for longer missions in deep space.
