Aug. 22 (UPI) — SpaceX on Wednesday revealed the Crew Dragon capsules that will take part in the Polaris Dawn and Crew-9 astronaut missions on Aug. 27 and Sept. 4.
The capsules were rolled out Wednesday at its processing facility in Florida with SpaceX saying on social media they were “readying for flight.”
Polaris Dawn is the first of three private missions paid for by billionaire tech owner Jared Isaacman. He will make the Dawn flight with experienced pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
The flight is expected to feature the first private spacewalk along with taking the crew more than 800 miles from Earth, the farthest man had been away from Earth since NASA’s Apollo missions.
“After more than two years of training, we are excited to embark on this mission,” Isaacman, who will serve as the mission’s commander, said in a statement on Monday. “Throughout our mission, we will aim to inspire humankind to look up and imagine what we can achieve here on Earth and in the worlds beyond our own.”
The Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, so the spacewalk will happen closer to Earth, 435 miles from the surface. Since all four astronauts will be exposed to the vacuum of space during the walk, they will all wear their spacesuits during that time. They will be testing SpaceX’s new spacesuits at the time that are crafted for long-duration space travel.
The astronauts will perform medical and health experiments while on their five-day trip as the capsule travels past the VanAllen Radiation Belt, which has a higher level of radiation than lower orbit.
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