Polaris Dawn gears up for historic launch

It’s a busy week for us here following the spaceflight industry. Polaris Dawn‘s rocket and crew are ready for launch, SpaceX has three Starlink missions lined up, and Blue Origin plans to fly its NS-26 rocket with customers out of Texas.

This week’s launches

• August 27 (Tuesday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-5 | 11:06 P.M. PT
    • SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
• August 28 (Wednesday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 8-6 | 2:54 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Polaris Dawn | 3:38 A.M. ET
    • LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
• August 29 (Thursday)
  • Galactic Energy | Ceres 1S | Unknown Payload | 1:20 A.M. ET
    • Haiyang Spaceport, China Coastal Waters
  • Blue Origin | New Shepard | NS-26 | 8:00 A.M. CT
    • Launch Site One, West Texas
• August 31 (Saturday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 8-10 | 1:39 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Spaceflight news roundup

Blue Origin suffered New Glen hardware losses in recent weeks, the Jeff Bezos-backed company lost a large component when being moved into a cooler hangar after being exposed to Florida’s heat and humidity. The second piece of hardware failed stress testing in a building at Blue Origin’s Florida facility. These types of failures aren’t uncommon for rocket development programs; SpaceX suffered several high-profile failures of tanks and rockets when building its Starship vehicle down in Starbase. [Bloomberg]

Sierra Space in talks to buy ULA after talks with Blue Origin and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management fell through. The company, a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is developing a reusable spaceplane and commercial LEO space station. However, both Sierra Space and ULA have suffered from their program delays and ULA specifically from its inability to scale rocket production. Both companies have missed contract deadlines, so combining the two may or may not lead to guaranteed success. [Reuters]

NASA’s next SLS rocket is coming together ahead of the one-year run-up to the first crewed flight to the Moon since Apollo 17. The SLS Core Stage (first stage) arrived at Kennedy Space Center a few weeks ago with the interstage adapter following last week. While hardware is arriving, stacking of the second SLS rocket is on hold until NASA better understands the heat shield issues that showed up on the Artemis 1 mission. [SpaceNews / Ars Technica]

Polaris Dawn ready to make history

Later this week, the crew of Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission will lift off for its roughly five-day stay in space.

The mission will feature the highest flight of humans since Apollo 17 and the first-ever commercial spacewalk. It’s been delayed for a couple of years as SpaceX finished up developing its in-house EVA suits that will be worn by the crew during the spacewalk. While only two crew members will go outside the spacecraft, the entire spacecraft will be depressurized, leaving everyone in a vacuum.

Issacman, the benefactor of the Polaris Program and Inspiration4, will be commanding the mission and making his return to space after three years. While he won’t confirm how much he has spent on the Polaris Dawn mission, it could be in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions as it is estimated NASA pays $55 million per seat on Crew Dragon.

This isn’t the end for Polaris; another Dragon mission is planned after Dawn, and then its third mission will be on SpaceX’s Starship rocket, destination unknown.