The Polaris Dawn crew is in space. What’s next?

Earth as seen from the Crew Dragon spacecraft during SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission. SpaceX
Four non-professional astronauts are now orbiting Earth inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft following a successful launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Tuesday. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who has helped to fund the Polaris Dawn mission, is in orbit with Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both lead space operations engineers at SpaceX. There’s a lot of buzz around the five-day Polaris Dawn mission, partly because two of the crew members, Isaacman and Gillis, are set to conduct the first commercial spacewalk, which could take place as soon as Thursday. It will also be the first time that humans have emerged from a Crew Dragon directly into the vacuum of space, as most Crew Dragon missions involve it docking with the International Space Station (ISS). The spacewalk will see Isaacman and Gillis conduct the first in-orbit test of the new SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, which represent an upgrade from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit. The spacesuit offers greater mobility and comfort than current designs, and the goal is to use a version of it on upcoming missions to the moon and Mars. The Crew Dragon will fly as high as 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth, making it the highest that humans have traveled in our planet’s orbit since the Apollo program five decades ago. The mission also takes the spacecraft way higher than the ISS, which orbits Earth at about 250 miles (402 kilometers) up. The Polaris Dawn crew will also be the first to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, an endeavor that’s expected to provide valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond. They’ll also spend their time working on a slew of experiments that will include health and human performance research for NASA’s Human Research Program. “The research will help NASA scientists better understand how exposure to space conditions affects the human body,” the space agency said, adding that the crew will also test new medical approaches and technology on telemedicine capabilities, gather data on space motion sickness, and conduct research to better characterize flight-associated injury risks. SpaceX had its most successful Starship flight yet last week, achieving a list of objectives including controlled landings for both the first-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft in the ocean in different parts of the world. In test flights 5, 7, and 8, SpaceX achieved the impressive feat of bringing the 71-meter-tall booster back to the launchpad at Starbase in southern Texas, using giant mechanical arms on the launch tower to secure the vehicle just above the ground. SpaceX has shared some slow-motion footage of its Starship spacecraft making a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean just over an hour after it launched from SpaceX’s Starbase site near Boca Chica in southern Texas on Tuesday. The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company shared two videos of the landing, with one of them tracking the Starship as it descended to make a controlled, soft landing on the water. SpaceX has shared some dramatic slow-motion footage (below) of the Starship rocket blasting off from the launchpad at the start of Tuesday’s successful flight.  “Liftoff of Super Heavy, the most powerful launch vehicle in history, on Starship’s tenth flight test,” SpaceX said in an online post that included the 30-second video.