Last Updated on 11/09/2024 by Arun jain
SpaceX has just launched four people On his most daring human spaceflight, a mission called Polaris Dawn.
The crew consists of a billionaire, a pilot and two SpaceX employees. After launching early Tuesday morning, they floated the company Crew Dragon Spaceship in Earth’s orbit.
None of them are NASA-grade Professional astronautsBut they have managed to fly further from Earth than anyone has traveled in more than 50 years, since the Apollo missions.
They are also planning Do the first commercial spacewalkRisk their full opening Crew Dragon spaceships for the vacuum of space.
Here’s who’s who in this bold, historic mission.
Jared Isaacman, mission commander
Jared Isaacman Bankrolling the mission and serving as its commander are billionaires. This isn’t the 41-year-old’s first rodeo.
In 2021, it was funded and took off First all-civilian spaceflightIt’s called Inspiration4, and SpaceX’s crew has brought three people with it to orbit Earth on Dragon.
That mission’s name, Inspiration4, derives from Shift4, the payment-processing company Isaacman founded in his parents’ basement after dropping out of high school at age 16. He is still the CEO.
Compared to other space-faring billionaires — viz Brilliant Richard Branson And Pop the champagne for Jeff Bezos – Isaacman’s tone is more serious.
For starters, he’s a relatively private person. He has repeatedly declined to say how much money he has spent on his missions with SpaceX.
He also has some technical qualifications commercial astronaut gig: He is an accomplished pilot, reporting over 7,000 flight hours. Isaacman’s business portfolio also includes Draken International, a private aircraft provider and pilot-training company, which he founded in 2012 and sold to Blackstone in 2019. Sales of Shift4 going public made him a billionaire.
Both messaging around Motivation4 And Polaris is very focused on raising funds for Don St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as well as making technological advances in human spaceflight.
“I knew it was a very important moment in history, and that comes with some responsibility,” he told BI ahead of the Inspiration4 launch in 2021. We have problems here on Earth, so we earn the right to go and explore among the stars.”
Isaacman has also approached NASA, offering funds Crew Dragon mission to boost orbit of Hubble Space Telescope And so its lifespan is extended, as it is currently expected to de-orbit in the mid-2030s. NASA has currently rejected this offer.
Isaacman lives in New Jersey with his wife Monica Isaacman and their two daughters. New York Post.
Sarah Gillis, Mission Specialist
Engineer supervises SpaceX’s astronaut training programSarah Gillisson first met Isaacman when she was preparing him and his crewmates for the Inspiration4 flight.
“You spend a large part of your job pretending to be an astronaut,” Gillis, 30, said at an Aug. 19 briefing. Knowledge to Engineers.”
Raised in Boulder, Colorado, Gillis was on track to become a violinist like her mother until her junior year of high school, when she attended a university guest lecture by former NASA astronaut and mechanical engineering professor Joe Tanner. she said The Denver Post That she stopped to talk to Tanner, who became her mentor as she studied aerospace engineering.
Gillis began with an internship at SpaceX in 2015 and quickly advanced to the company’s astronaut training program and mission control operations. He is still an accomplished violinist and an avid hiker.
Gillis’ husband, Louis, is also a SpaceX engineer. He helped create the dragon’s propulsion system.
“So I know what goes into the testing and the design and rigor behind everything on the spacecraft,” Gillis said, “she was very excited to fly on my favorite Dragon spacecraft.”
She is serving as a mission specialist on the Polaris Dawn, which is assigned to launch Dragon on Thursday Perform the first commercial spacewalk with Isaacman. This is her first time in space.
Anna Menon, Mission Specialist and Medical Officer
Anna Menon She dreamed of going to space since childhood.
“I grew up in Houston, another space city, and on field trips I was exposed to space and experienced a day in the life of an astronaut and a flight controller in mission control,” Mann said during an Aug. 19 briefing. “And I fell in love with the industry.”
Polaris Dawn is the 38-year-old’s first time in space. She is an engineer at SpaceX and serves as a mission specialist and medical officer for Polaris Dawn.
“I think working at SpaceX gives me a tremendous ability to go into space,” Menon said.
Before joining SpaceX, Mann worked at NASA and helped oversee operations of the International Space Station as a biomedical flight controller.
She’s not the only one in her family who ventured into space. Menon’s husband Anil is one of them NASA’s new astronauts. The couple has two children, James and Grace.
During her trip to space, Anna considers reading a little. “I’m going to read a children’s book that I wrote, ‘A kiss from space,’ to both my children as well as some brave children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” she Told the people. The live feed Storytime is part of the mission’s fundraising for Children’s Hospital, which treats childhood cancer and other diseases.
Scott “Kid” Poteet, Mission Pilot
Although he flew fighter jets for the US Air Force, Scott Poteet never went into space. 50 years old mission pilot suffering from motion sickness, but managed to overcome it in his combat missions performance Aerobatic maneuvers with US Air Force Thunderbirds.
He himself said Spectrum News His path to becoming an astronaut was not ordinary, at least not by today’s standards. His grades weren’t the best in school, and he didn’t have a background in engineering or science. However, Isaacman Poteet, who goes by “Kidd”, invited him to pilot Polaris Dawn.
“On a personal level, having flown fighter jets for 20 years in the Air Force, combat experience, operational test experience, many red flag exercises and leading the Fighter Weapons School, I can tell you without a doubt that this has been the most challenging. training that I’ve ever experienced,” Potitt said of his training for Polaris Dawn during an Aug. 19 briefing.
Poteet lives and works with his wife in Monument, Colorado Three At least one of the children hopes to follow in his footsteps. “My 12-year-old son absolutely plans to go into space,” he said recently UNH Magazine. “He believes it will be normal in his lifetime.”
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