Billionaire from first SpaceX civilian flight buys three more trips
The billionaire businessman who bought four seats on SpaceX’s first civilian flight into space is funding three more spaceflights — including the first crewed flight of the Starship. Jared Isaacman, the founder of payment processing company Shift4, previously paid for his own and three other seats on a three-day trip with Inspiration4 mission in September 2022.
Isaacman chose a childhood cancer survivor, professor, and engineer to share the journey with him. The trip helped raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Isaacman’s next three trips will form part of SpaceX’s Polaris Programme, which aims to demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research and culminate in the first flight of SpaceX’s Starship with humans on board.
For the first mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, the crew will be launched in a Crew Dragon capsule propelled by a Falcon 9 rocket and will go into super-high orbit around Earth, the furthest in space mankind will have been since landing on the moon.
“The crew of Polaris Dawn will conduct a spacewalk, support scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights, and be the first to test Starlink laser-based communications in space,” SpaceX explained.
Isaacman has picked two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, and former Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet” to accompany him on this trip. The second mission will build on the first to “continue to expand the boundaries of future human spaceflight missions, in-space communications, and scientific research”.
Mission III will be the first human spaceflight on SpaceX’s Starship, which the company is hoping will become the world’s first fully reusable space transportation system.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently announced the company plans to launch a Starship prototype on its first orbital flight in the coming months, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).
The Starship achieved several milestones last year, with SpaceX managing to launch the vehicle’s prototypes 10km into the air and finally managing to land one without further incidents on the fourth attempt. The company plans to use the Starship for its crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.
Source: cnbc
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