FOLIO
Words and Photos by Sam Kaplan
September 10th.
5:23 a.m.
Partly cloudy, on and off rain, what felt like 150% humidity. Essentially, it was a normal Florida night.
Until a roar shattered the fragile silence over Cape Canaveral. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket turned darkness into daylight, blasting off of Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, the very launchpad that launched the Apollo program’s missions to the moon and the Space Shuttle. Now with SpaceX being a decade into their 20-year lease of the pad, they’ve launched the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and soon enough, their gargantuan Starship rocket. (To put it in perspective, imagine if we strapped 40.8 million horsepower worth of engines to the Riverplace Tower, sent it to space, then had it fall out of the sky and land. That’s pretty much Starship).
So yeah, the pad’s got some history to it.
As the rocket roared to life, with flame being turned to thrust, it added onto that legacy because this launch isn’t carrying satellites or NASA astronauts: it’s carrying civilians. And they’re about to do something unprecedented.
This mission was Polaris Dawn, the first in a series of three launches of the Polaris program, funded and founded by Shift4 CEO, pilot and astronaut Jared “Rook” Isaacman (who also funded the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, a fundraiser for St. Jude, as is the Polaris program). Aboard the Dragon spaceflight capsule, dubbed Resilience, were Isaacman, mission pilot and former U.S. Air Force Thunderbird Scott “Kidd” Poteet, SpaceX engineer and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis and SpaceX engineer and Mission Specialist/Medical Officer Anna Menon. With Isaacman’s position as funder and astronaut, many viewed this as another billionaire’s joyride to space with his friends (see Jeff
Bezos and Richard Branson sending themselves to the edge of space for funsies!). The goals of this mission, however, were far beyond a simple hop, skip and jump off of Earth.
The Dawn crew spent five days orbiting the Earth in the Dragon capsule, conducting 40 experiments with 20 partner institutions, such as testing new in-space communication systems, which will allow us to communicate with people on Earth when we go back to the Moon (and, eventually, Mars). The mission also included flying up to 870 miles — three times the height of the International Space Station — to see how the human body handles spaceflight within and beyond the Van Allen radiation belt (if that sounds scary, it’s because it is. That’s where the Earth traps particles of radiation from the Sun), all while raising more money for St. Jude’s cancer research.
There’s a lot of history to be made within these goals, with the 870 mile mark (4.5 million feet above Earth) being the highest earth orbit any humans have ever achieved, and the highest since Apollo. Gillis and Menon would also have gone further into space than any women have before.
The big highlight, however, came on day three. At 6:12 a.m. EST, the crew, wearing their brand new SpaceX EVA suits (EVA means extravehicular activity, the space term for “we’re not in the capsule anymore!”), opened up the newly modified hatch atop Dragon. With millions watching live, they were about to put 2.5+ years of work and training to the test.
Isaacman then stepped out to become the first civilian astronaut to conduct a spacewalk, a massive milestone for private, commercial spaceflight, especially as SpaceX moves toward, as Isaacman put it, “[humans] becoming a multiplanetary species.” Poteet, Gillis and Menon, while still in the capsule, weren’t just in relaxation mode at this point though. They had donned their EVA suits, as they were being subjected to the conditions of space as well, making this the first time in history that four people at once experienced the vacuum of space. Climbing atop SpaceX’s “Skywalker” system, a camera inside Isaacman’s helmet allowed us back home to see the view for ourselves. As our big blue world came into view, Isaacman stated to SpaceX’s team on the ground, “Well, SpaceX, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth looks like a perfect world.”
After about 15 minutes atop the capsule doing mobility tests, Isaacman returned and Gillis exited the capsule for her round of testing. See, this spacewalk wasn’t just a sightseeing adventure; it was the first in-space test of the SpaceX EVA suits and the first EVA from a Dragon capsule (because this mission wasn’t already historic enough). These suits are not only important to SpaceX, but NASA as well, who have been using their same EVA suits since the early ’80s and just had Collins Aerospace drop their participation in the contract for the replacement. William Gerstenmaier, a 40-year NASA veteran and now vice president of build and flight reliability for SpaceX, spoke on the issue and partnership at the pre-launch arrival press conference.
“We share with each other [SpaceX and NASA] what we know and what we don’t know… This pace of development that we get to do at SpaceX is very much like the pace of development that was required back in the early Apollo days,” he said. “We’re getting a chance to do that again… It’s time to do these big things and move forward.”
Following the spacewalk, the crew removed their EVA suits and took most of day three to rest and recover. They used day four to test out the Starlink system installed in Dragon by posting directly to social media, connecting with family via FaceTime, and having Gillis, a classically trained violinist, record a rendition of “Rey’s Theme” from Star Wars earlier in the flight, with the recorded track sent back to Earth where it was mixed into a full performance (conducted by “Star Wars” composer John Williams himself) with orchestras from all around the world, all from their capsule orbiting above Earth. Day five, the final full day in orbit, was spent finishing up the last remaining experiments, including a study on kidney stone formation in microgravity and continuing development of proper CPR techniques in orbit, as well as continued testing of Starlink, used to call their families while finalizing splashdown (return) preparations.
At 3:36 a.m. EST on Sept. 15 (the third anniversary of Inspiration4’s launch) off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Resilience splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, capping off a successful mission, fundraiser, and an end to one of the most historic missions in spaceflight. With commercial crewed launches increasing, NASA set to launch another crewed launch later in September, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn test flight around the corner, it’s an exciting time in spaceflight, and Cape Canaveral, as it has been throughout history, is the epicenter.
Follow FOLIO!