Dangerous journey US rocket wants to walk in space - 1400 kilometers above the earth
US billionaire and adventurer Jared Isaacman has been to space before. He wants to go into space again on a new, far more dangerous journey. After several delays, the launch is now set to go ahead.
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- US billionaire Jared Isaacman wants to return to space in 2021 after a self-financed space trip.
- This time, according to CNN, it's not a "joyride".
- The "Polaris Dawn" mission is associated with considerable risks for people and technology.
- On the one hand, there is the flight through the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt, and on the other, the space capsule in which the crew is located is to be opened and completely depressurized.
- Isaacman and another crew member will then leave the capsule.
- The aim of the mission is primarily to test equipment.
- After several delays and postponed launches, the journey is finally set to begin.
When the US billionaire and adventurer Jared Isaacman returned from a self-financed journey into space in 2021, he announced that he would probably never return. Together with a crew of three, he orbited the Earth for three days in a space capsule just under four meters wide. Now he wants to go back after all - preparations for a larger, more dangerous and more experimental journey into space will start on Monday.
The US space travel company SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has been in full swing for weeks. After several delays and postponed launches, Tuesday could be the day: The experimental space mission "Polaris Dawn", led by US billionaire and adventurer Jared Isaacman, is finally set to take off.
The goal: a crew of four - including Isaacman's close friend and former Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and the two SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis - will spend five days on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which will fly further into space than any human has since the end of NASA's Apollo program in the 1970s.
The capsule's orbit will be so high that the crew will enter a dangerous zone, the Van Allen radiation belt, as reported by CNN.
Dangerous passage through the radiation belt
In the further course of the journey, the crew will also open the hatch of the spacecraft and expose themselves to the vacuum of space. Two people are even to leave the capsule completely. During this undertaking, the astronauts will be protected exclusively by special suits.
Testing the equipment is one of the main objectives of the mission. The aim is to take the first steps towards validating technologies that SpaceX could one day need to transport people even deeper into the cosmos.
After the launch, the "Polaris Dawn" crew will enter an orbit that extends to an altitude of 1400 kilometers from Earth. This is in the middle of the inner band of the Van Allen radiation belt, which begins at an altitude of around 1000 kilometers.
The belts are areas where concentrations of high-energy particles coming from the sun and interacting with the Earth's atmosphere are trapped. This creates two dangerous radiation bands. Flying through them is correspondingly dangerous for people and technology.
Potentially fatal pressure drop
The fact that the capsule will be exposed to a complete loss of pressure when it is later opened poses additional difficulties for the crew. There are no airlocks on the mission, such as those on the International Space Station (ISS), which serve as special decompression chambers for astronauts embarking on a spacewalk.
"Polaris Dawn" will instead take "a truly novel and different approach" to the so-called pre-breathing process, in which "cabin pressure is slowly lowered and oxygen concentration is increased", CNN quotes SpaceX employees.
Almost immediately after arriving in space, the Polaris Dawn crew will begin a "pre-breathe process" to prepare for the spacewalk. The process is similar to what divers do to avoid decompression sickness.
Crew members must remove the nitrogen from their blood so that the gas does not form bubbles in the bloodstream when the pressure drops in the Dragon capsule and the vacuum in space - a potentially fatal condition. This process will take around 45 hours.
Significant risks for humans and technology
On the third day of the space journey, the hatch of the Crew Dragon will open at an altitude of around 700 kilometers above the Earth. All four crew members and the entire interior of the spaceship will be exposed to the vast emptiness. Only Isaacman and Gillis will actually leave the spaceship, remaining connected to the capsule by a few umbilical cords.
There would also be considerable risks for the technology on board during this venture. Numerous tests were therefore carried out in preparation to simulate the conditions at such an altitude.
Launch postponed several times
After the launch was originally planned for the end of July and then mid-August, the journey is now finally due to start on Tuesday, September 10.
The main problem was the weather conditions, which have to be predicted as accurately as possible both during the launch and when the capsule returns to land in the water.
However, the launch on Tuesday is anything but set in stone. "The weather is currently 40 percent favorable for launch, and conditions at the potential water landing sites for Dragon's return to Earth continue to be monitored," Polaris Dawn said on Monday.
Musk announces unmanned Mars flight
Even before Polaris Dawn has been launched, SpaceX owner Elon Musk has already announced the next major project. The multi-billionaire wants to launch an unmanned Mars mission in 2026. "We want to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars," writes Musk on his "X" platform.
If everything goes smoothly, the first humans could fly to Mars as early as 2028. After that, things should really get going, Musk reveals: "The flight rate will increase exponentially from then on, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years."