Jared Isakman, the billionaire who flew into Earth orbit aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule last year, plans to fly with the company again.
And Isaacman announced that he’s bought three additional upcoming flights with SpaceX, a series of missions called Polaris that will take him even deeper into space on the company’s spacecraft.
Isaacman, who made his fortune through payment processing company Shift4 Payments, made headlines last year when he funded a full Crew Dragon passenger mission in September, dubbed Inspiration4.
And the Inspiration4 group headed into orbit together for a three-day trip while raising funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
It now appears that Isaacman plans to recreate the Inspiration4 mission multiple times and on increasingly larger scales. The three flights he purchased include two missions via the Crew Dragon spacecraft that flies to ultra-high Earth orbits.
On Crew Dragon’s first flight, called Polaris Dawn, Isaacman plans to fly again. The trip is also another chance to raise funds for St. Jude.
And if the flight is successful, it will fly to the highest altitude reached by the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, not to mention the people on board.
And Isaacman claims that the Polaris Dawn’s voyage may reach far beyond what humans have gone since we last walked on the moon.
The Crew Dragon’s primary purpose is to transport astronauts and cargo to and from NASA’s International Space Station.
SpaceX becomes home to an entire private space program
SpaceX moved its first crew of NASA astronauts aboard in May of 2020, followed by a handful of other crews over the past few years.
But the company is starting to branch out, doing its first fully fledged special mission with Inspiration4. It also has plans to launch a series of special missions for Axiom to the International Space Station.
Crew Dragons are missions to test deep space human travel with SpaceX. And that’s while the company is trying to develop some new capabilities.
It includes Polaris Dawn’s spacewalk. A spacewalker wears a new type of spacesuit designed for spacewalking. These suits are currently being developed by SpaceX
The flight tests laser-based communications in space from Starlink. It can also monitor the huge constellation of satellites that the company is building to provide global broadband coverage.
The mission is also checking how the crew is coping with the deeper space environment. The flight takes the four-person crew through the Van Allen belts.
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