Musk's SpaceX testing breakthrough tech in risky spacewalk
Send a link to a friend
[August 23, 2024]
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SpaceX's attempt at the first ever private
spacewalk next week will be a test of trailblazing equipment, including
slim spacesuits and a cabin with no airlock, in one of the riskiest
missions yet for Elon Musk's space company.
A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two
SpaceX employees are poised to launch on Tuesday aboard a modified Crew
Dragon craft, before embarking on a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700
km) into space two days later.
Until now, walking into the empty expanse of space has only been
attempted by government astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS),
250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
SpaceX's five-day mission - dubbed Polaris Dawn - will swing in an
oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190 km (118 miles) and
as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest any humans will have
ventured since the end of the United States' Apollo moon program in
1972.
Crew members, including billionaire Jared Isaacman, will don SpaceX's
new, slimline spacesuits in a Crew Dragon vehicle that was modified so
it can open its hatch door in the vacuum of space - an unusual process
that removes the need for an airlock.
"They're pushing the envelope in multiple ways," retired NASA astronaut
Garrett Reisman said in an interview. "They're also going to a much
higher altitude, with a more severe radiation environment than we've
been to since Apollo."
The mission has been bankrolled by Isaacman, the founder of electronic
payment company Shift4. He has declined to say how much he has spent,
but it is estimated to be over $100 million.
Joining him will be mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force
lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon,
both senior engineers at the company.
For SpaceX, which has pioneered cheap, reusable rockets and expensive
private spaceflight, the mission is an opportunity to advance
technologies that could be used on the moon and Mars.
Far outside the protective bubble of Earth's atmosphere, the electronics
and shielding on Crew Dragon and spacesuits will be tested as they pass
through parts of the Van Allen belt, an area where charged particles
streaming mainly from the sun can disrupt satellites' electronics and
affect human health.
"That's an additional risk that you don't face when you just stay in
low-Earth orbit and go up to the ISS," Reisman said.
[to top of second column]
|
The entrance to the SpaceX rocket launch area is pictured in
Brownsville, Texas, U.S., May 12, 2024. REUTERS/Veronica Gabriela
Cardenas
NOT A NORMAL SPACEWALK
The Polaris spacewalk will take place on the mission's third day,
but preparation will begin about 45 hours in advance.
The gumdrop-shaped Crew Dragon's entire cabin will be depressurized
and exposed to the vacuum of space. While only two of the astronauts
will float outside, tethered by an oxygen line, the whole crew will
depend on their spacesuits for life support.
Days before the spacewalk, the crew will begin a "pre-breathe"
process to fill the cabin with pure oxygen and remove any nitrogen
from the air.
Nitrogen, if present in astronauts' bloodstreams in space, could
form bubbles, block blood flow and lead to decompression sickness,
known as "the bends," as with scuba divers who return too quickly to
the water's surface.
The crew will use an ultrasound device to monitor any bubble
formation, one of many tools to be used in the mission to inform
dozens of scientific experiments, providing researchers a rare peek
into how astronauts might fare on the moon's surface or elsewhere in
deep space.
"It gives us a very unique opportunity to test these vehicles in
such a very unique environment," said Emmanuel Urquieta, vice chair
for aerospace medicine at the University of Central Florida's
internal medicine department.
While astronaut safety on NASA missions is rigorously overseen by
the agency, there are no such U.S. standards or laws for spaceflight
safety in private missions like Polaris.
SpaceX officials and the Polaris crew said during a Monday news
conference they have planned for an array of contingency scenarios
if something during the mission goes wrong, such as an oxygen leak
or failure to reseal the hatch door, but they did not detail what
those were.
Reisman said he knows the Polaris crew and believes they are
prepared to handle any unexpected mishaps.
"But there's not a lot of room for error," he said.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Joe Brock and Jonathan
Oatis)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |