SpaceX: First Commercial Spacewalk, Far From Earth

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Space company SpaceX wants to conduct the first commercial spacewalk. A crew member on a new mission must leave the spacecraft and do odd jobs around the Earth. SpaceX has had new spacesuits made for this.

The craft is also set to enter the highest Earth orbit ever. The launch is at the end of this year at the earliest.

SpaceX has not disclosed how far the craft should be from Earth. The record is now held by the American flight Gemini 11 from 1966. Then, it orbited the Earth at an altitude of almost 1,400 kilometres. Space station ISS flies much lower, at about 400 kilometres altitude.

Polaris Dawn is the name of the mission announced Monday. The flight commander becomes billionaire Jared Isaacman. He is the founder of payment service Shift4. Last September, Isaacman also went into space with SpaceX. He was then captain of the first mission with only civilians on board. They spent three days in orbit around the Earth.

Isaacman’s three travelling companions on the new flight are former Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. They stay in space for five days.
Two more Polaris missions are to follow later. Plans for this have not yet been announced.

Elon Musk (Tesla)’s SpaceX is in fierce competition with Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) and Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson). They all want to sell tourist flights to space. Musk has sold a tourist flight to the moon to a Japanese billionaire. SpaceX is also involved in the US government’s space program. For example, the company is allowed to build a lunar lander that will take people to the moon and back in a few years.