SpaceX mission has started: Elon Musk has big plans

After several delays, SpaceX is launching the “Polaris Dawn” mission. A risky maneuver is to follow soon. Astronauts have not been further out in space for decades.

Four astronauts have embarked on a risky mission. The privately financed “Polaris Dawn” project will take them up to 1,400 kilometers away from Earth. According to the space company SpaceX, this will be the greatest distance humans have traveled from Earth since the last Apollo missions to the moon in the early 1970s. For comparison: the ISS space station is at an altitude of around 400 kilometers.

Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman is leading the mission, which will last up to five days, in coordination with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who will remain on the ground. Isaacman was joined by private astronauts Kidd Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, who took off on board a Crew Dragon spacecraft with a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral spaceport on the west coast of Florida.

The Crew Dragon capsule, which is about eight by four meters in size, can accommodate up to seven people for up to ten days. People sleep in the seats and the toilet is behind a curtain.

Outdoor use at an altitude of 700 kilometers

During the mission, the astronauts will be on an extravehicular activity at an altitude of around 700 kilometers, during which the private space company will test a space suit for extravehicular activities. During the “first commercial spacewalk” – as it says on the project’s website – the suit is intended to ensure greater mobility than previous suits. In addition, it has a display built into the helmet, a camera and new materials for better heat regulation in ice-cold space.

SpaceX will conduct a series of tests

Astronauts are exposed to greater danger during external missions than in spaceships. Orientation in weightlessness is challenging, and the equipment must compensate for extreme temperature fluctuations, provide oxygen and protect against radiation in space. It can be life-threatening if the oxygen supply is disrupted or an astronaut is separated from the spaceship. Normally, external missions are used to carry out maintenance work or experiments on the ISS, for example. They are considered crucial to the success of missions to the moon and Mars.

SpaceX will test the suits for future missions to the moon and Mars. The private astronauts will also conduct experiments on the effects of space flight and space radiation on human health. A laser-based communication technology from the satellite-based internet program Starlink will also be tested.

Preparing for Mars

The launch of “Polaris Dawn” had been postponed several times due to unfavorable weather. Most recently, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily withdrew the Falcon 9’s launch permit due to an incident during a previous launch. “Millions of spacesuits will be needed to build a base on the moon and a city on Mars,” said project planners. “Developing this suit and conducting the spacewalk will be important steps toward a scalable spacesuit design for future long-term missions as life becomes multiplanetary.”

A colony on Mars – that is the long-term goal of the US space agency NASA. With the “Artemis” program, however, it wants to first bring people back to the moon – for the first time in more than half a century. A base on the Earth’s satellite should form the basis for missions to Mars.

However, NASA had to postpone the lunar orbit planned for November 2024 as part of “Artemis 2” to September 2025 due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft. The planned manned lunar landing “Artemis 3” in September 2026.

Launch to Mars in 2026 – according to Elon Musk

SpaceX boss Elon Musk will still embark on the long journey to Mars next year – albeit initially without astronauts. “The first spaceships to Mars will launch in two years, when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens,” the billionaire wrote on his platform X at the weekend. This is intended to test the reliability of landings on the planet.

“If these landings go well, the first manned flights to Mars will take place in four years,” he continued. Musk believes that a self-sufficient city on Mars will be possible in 20 years.

_{Text: dpa / Editor: Felix Ritter}