"Achievement unlocked."
New Heights
Tech billionaire and private SpaceX astronaut Jared Isaacman and his three fellow crewmates have officially reached an apogee of 869 miles — roughly three times the altitude of the International Space Station — above the Earth's surface.
The team launched on board a Crew Dragon spacecraft early Tuesday morning, kicking off a daring, six-day odyssey full of firsts.
Video footage shared by the space company on X-formerly-Twitter shows its Crew Dragon spacecraft firing its Draco thrusters, taking the crew of four farther from our planet than any other humans since NASA's Apollo missions half a century ago.
It's a historic moment, demonstrating just how far SpaceX has come in pushing the boundaries of spaceflight. SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission is Isaacman's second all-civilian trip around the Earth, signaling a major win for the Elon Musk-led venture.
"Achievement unlocked," SpaceX wrote in its announcement.
The @PolarisProgram astronaut mission is headed for an altitude 3 times higher than the Space Station, the furthest that humans have been from Earth in over half a century! pic.twitter.com/lYgsA5vMGk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 10, 2024
Skywalker
The mission is flying an unusual elliptical path around the Earth, taking a human crew through the Van Allen radiation belts and over the planet's poles for the first time ever.
Clearly visible in the footage being shared is the capsule's "Skywalker" platform, a pool ladder-like structure that Isaacman and crewmate Sarah Gillis will use to perform the first private spacewalk as soon as two days from now.
The daring stunt will involve fully depressurizing the entire capsule as the crew dons SpaceX's newly-developed extravehicular activity (EVA) suits to keep them safe as they take their first steps outside of the spacecraft at an altitude of around 435 miles.
Since launching early Tuesday morning, the mission has largely gone by without a hitch. Later that day, the spacecraft began raising its orbit by burning its thrusters for eight minutes.
The spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the ocean five days from now, bookending a historic mission.
That's if everything goes according to plan, of course. Has SpaceX bitten off more than it can chew? We'll be keeping a close eye on the mission, so stay tuned.
More on Polaris Dawn: Billionaire Adventurer Rides SpaceX Spaceship Straight Into Earth's Radiation Belt
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