Delays For SpaceX’s First Dragon EVA Mission
Back in early 2022, SpaceX announced an exciting mission named Polaris Dawn. Expected to happen in the fourth quarter of 2022, the mission would take place in the Crew Dragon spacecraft and attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, among other things. The mission would also utilize an upgraded spacesuit based on SpaceX’s current IVA suit.
Unfortunately, there have been quite a few delays since this original announcement, the first was in October of last year which pushed the launch date back to March of this year. That date was then delayed until the fourth quarter of this year. Recent information however suggests that they won’t be ready until early next year in 2024.
While not ideal, teams have been very busy since the mission announcement with work on the spacesuit and especially crew training. Even though more delays are expected to happen, right now we are closer to this mission’s launch date than ever before. Here I will go more in-depth into the new delay, what progress SpaceX has made, the unique mission profile, and more.
New Delay
In a recent interview with CNBC, Jared Isaacman, the mission commander and main funding behind the Polaris missions, said preparations were continuing for Polaris Dawn. “We’re making a lot of progress. We’re still hoping for the end of the year, but I suspect it will probably slip into the beginning of next year. This should be expected. It’s a test and development program” he said.
During the past delays, there were a host of reasons why the mission was pushed back, this included physical progress necessities and also a busy airspace. At the time, Polaris spokesperson Sarah Grover commented “In addition to the development driven schedule risk, moving into the winter brings us into a busy period and our date could be directly impacted by ISS missions, which carry their own uncertainty” While Polaris Dawn is not going to the International Space Station, other SpaceX crew and cargo missions would launch from the same pad at Launch Complex 39A.
She also pointed out that“There is also uncertainty from the Falcon side as there are potential Falcon Heavy launches with government priority ratings in the mix,” she said. During the October delay, these were some of the main reasons why provided by teams apart of the Polaris program.
Focusing back on the most recent delay and current progress, they are actually very close to launching. To put it in perspective, in February this year, Isaacman said “We’re now just months away from flying.” While he didn’t provide any specific information on why the mission was being pushed back again, he did give us a slight hint. In an interview, he suggested the delays were linked to the new spacesuit under development. “We’ve had a little bit more free time this summer than we probably would have expected,” he said, which he attributed to the timing of spacesuit development and training. That effort “doesn’t always sync up, so we’ve had a little more free time with family and work this summer.”
He went on to say, “We’re going to need spacesuits that don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars in order to do that. We’re pretty excited because the suit that we are testing out, the evolution of it someday could be very well worn by people that are walking on the moon or Mars.” Beyond these various quotes, the program itself hasn’t provided any formal schedule updates about the mission since then, with the most recent update on the program’s website published in May.
What is slightly concerning for the future date is another busy launch timeline. As partially mentioned prior other launches from Complex 39A and Crew Dragon missions can easily get in the way of this mission which doesn’t take priority. Early next year, Axiom Space is planning its third private astronaut mission to the International Space Station in January 2024, followed as soon as a month later by NASA’s Crew-8 mission to the station, both using Crew Dragon spacecraft. These missions, both using a Dragon spacecraft could also cause some schedule issues and push the mission back even further.
Mostly, the mission will depend on spacesuit development over the next few months, and the availability of both the pad and Dragon spacecraft. Polaris is a very ambitious mission and with that comes delays and certain hold-ups. On the bright side, a lot of work has been completed and is now just waiting for other mission aspects in order to launch.
Final Preparation
During this mission, at approximately 700 kilometers above the Earth, the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit. They point out that building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require thousands of spacesuits; the development of this suit and the execution of the EVA will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions.
This Dragon mission will also take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon’s maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. Orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, Polaris Dawn will conduct research with the aim of better understanding the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.
As you can imagine, in order to complete these different mission goals, the crew needed to complete a lot of training. Their training throughout the course of 2022 and into 2023 has included missions everything from scuba diving to climbing mountains. In addition to ensuring they are familiar with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, this extensive training regimen has provided the crew with valuable experience in making rapid, high-stakes decisions in high-consequence environments, ensuring they are mentally and physically prepared for spaceflight.
Fighter jet training allowed for crew resource management, teamwork, and checklist procedures applied in high-consequence environment. This skillset translates into the spaceflight context, where the crew must be prepared to react swiftly to a wide range of nominal or off-nominal scenarios that could arise during their mission. The crew’s scuba diving and participation in a decompression sickness study provided further insights into conducting the mission’s spacewalk. Communication methods used during these events are comparable to those required during a spacewalk, emphasizing the importance of clear and concise conveying of information between crew members and teams back on Earth.
Overall, this comprehensive training program is intended to foster camaraderie and team cohesion among the crew, essential elements of any spaceflight mission, especially one as ambitious as Polaris Dawn. Understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses allows the crew to operate effectively, efficiently, and safely on Earth, and ultimately, in space.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions in a program that will lead up to the first crewed launch of Starship. Isaacman said the last mission is “pretty far out there,” and that SpaceX still had a lot of progress to make on Starship before flying people on it. “Clearly it’s going to need a lot more launches and that design is going to have to evolve to the extent that it’s going to be safe for human spaceflight” he said.
There also are more questions relating to the suit for this mission. SpaceNews reported that it’s not clear when that SpaceX-developed spacesuit would next be used. They pointed out that NASA awarded contracts in June 2022 to Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace for development of spacesuits to both replace those currently used on the ISS as well as for future Artemis lunar landing missions. While SpaceX’s Starship will be used for at least the Artemis 3 and 4 missions to land on the lunar surface, those missions will use spacesuits from Axiom or Collins.
This being said, recent comments and delays suggest that SpaceX is continuing to work on its own EVA for this mission. This would make sense considering spacesuits are immensely complex pieces of equipment and something the company is not willing to rush or take any shortcuts on. Also, despite some of the graphics provided by SpaceX for this mission, the suits will need to be a lot different than the current IVA spacesuits.
The current suit is not designed to be used in the vacuum of space. The suit instead becomes one part of a system that includes the Dragon crew seat, and is designed to plug in and automatically provide astronauts with everything they need. SpaceX’s suit would provide a pressurized environment upon lift-off and return, and atmospheric reentry aboard the Dragon capsule, in case of an emergency such as cabin depressurization. On the other hand, for a spacewalk, a fully equipped spacesuit acts like a miniature spaceship shaped like a human body that protects the astronaut from the dangers of being outside a vehicle while in space or on the Moon. Spacewalking astronauts face radiation, dust, debris, and extreme temperatures. Temperatures on spacewalks may vary from as cold as minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit to as hot as 250 degrees in the sunlight. The suits provide the proper pressure for the body and supply astronauts with water to drink and oxygen to breathe. All of which SpaceX needs to consider and get right.
Conclusion
We recently learned that the Polaris Dawn mission will likely get pushed back again to early 2024. This is primarily due to work on spacesuits which is taking longer than expected. On the bright side crew training is practically ready and the mission is not far away. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.