This year, the @SpaceX Dragon spaceship will take astronauts the furthest they’ve been from Earth in over half a century
Dragon will target an apogee of ~1400km during Polaris Dawn, the first human spaceflight of three @PolarisProgram missions → polarisprogram.com/dawn
Gwynne Shotwell says SpaceX will roll out “Plug-and-Plaser” (commercialised communications lasers) on Polaris Dawn this Summer, which will connect the Dragon capsule to the Internet.
Gwynne's comments Comments on goals for 2024 at 1:31:55 148 Falcon 9 launches Starship into orbit, deploying satellites and recovering both stages Double Starlink customer base 7 Dragon crewed missions
Quote from: scdavis on 03/19/2024 02:57 pmGwynne's comments Comments on goals for 2024 at 1:31:55 148 Falcon 9 launches Starship into orbit, deploying satellites and recovering both stages Double Starlink customer base 7 Dragon crewed missions7 Crewed Dragons?! what will those be? Based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2#Crew_Dragon_flightswe have five flights: Crew-8 Crew-9 Axiom-3 (already flown) Axiom-4 Polaris DawnWhat are the other two flights? Maybe Polaris # 2 and Maybe Crew-10? That would be early for Crew-10, which should in theory fly a year after Crew-8.
After watching it I'm not sure whether to interpret it as all seven Dragon missions being crewed.
Things are heating up w/Polaris Dawn mission. We spent last week completing most of the EVA suit acceptance test procedure. This was the first time we wore the final assembled suits as opposed to the development or training suits. There are big milestones ahead (CEIT, vacuum chamber runs, joint sim campaign), but we are getting very close to 🚀
I suspect in a month or so there will be an unveiling.
SpaceX@SpaceXThe Polaris Dawn Dragon is headed to vacuum chamber testing! SpaceX teams celebrate Dragon's departure with @rookisaacman, @KiddPoteet, @Gillis_SarahE, and @annawmenon ahead of launching to orbit this summer
SpaceX@SpaceXTeams will recreate expected conditions in space by lowering and raising the vehicle's pressures to ensure Dragon performs as expected both during and after the first commercial spacewalk. They'll also test for any off-gassing of materials that may take place while operating at vacuum2:18 PM · Apr 3, 2024
SpaceX@SpaceX·8mThroughout their time in orbit, Dragon and the crew will reach the highest altitude flown in Earth's orbit since Apollo, test Starlink, and conduct 35+ research experiments in addition to the spacewalk
SpaceX@SpaceXPolaris Dawn will be SpaceX's fourth Dragon mission flying civilians to space. Missions such as these unlock opportunities for more people and critical science to go to space, helping make life multiplanetary. Learn more about human spaceflight at SpaceX → http://spacex.com/humanspaceflight
Elon Musk@elonmuskThis will be the first commercial space walk!
Sarah Gillis@Gillis_SarahEIncredible week getting to see both our Dragon Spacecraft 🐉 (named Resilience!) and the entire @SpaceX team supporting the mission! Clearly it takes a village to make human spaceflight happen, congratulations to the entire team for getting to this milestone!
SpaceX@SpaceXPolaris Dawn will be SpaceX's fifth Dragon mission flying civilians to space. Missions such as these unlock opportunities for more people and critical science to go to space, helping make life multiplanetary. Learn more about human spaceflight at SpaceX → http://spacex.com/humanspaceflight5:14 PM · Apr 3, 2024
Throughout their time in orbit, Dragon and the crew will reach the highest altitude flown in Earth's orbit since Apollo ...
If I recall correctly, only the Apollo lunar missions reached Polaris Dawn/Resilience's expected highest Earth orbital altitude. Question: During or after the TLI burn, did any such Apollo spacecraft exceed that altitude while in an Earth orbit or were they by then in an Earth-Moon orbit; in an orbit that intersected the Earth's surface, or some other non-Earth orbit?
STS-31 had an apogee of 621 km. So highest distance from Earth since Apollo 17.
