![Polaris Dawn](https://cdn.newsserve.net/en/knowledge/Polaris-Dawn_20240509.jpg)
SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission blasts off
The expedition, funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, will attempt the world's first private spacewalk.
Polaris Dawn is a private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman and is the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. Launched 10 September 2024 as the 14th crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, Isaacman and his crew of three — Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — are on a trajectory toward a highly elliptical orbit that will take them up to 1,400 kilometers (870 mi) away from Earth, the farthest anyone has been since NASA's Apollo program so that they pass through parts of the Van Allen radiation belt to study the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body. Later in the mission, Isaacman and Gillis are expected to attempt the first commercial spacewalk.
The expedition, funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, will attempt the world's first private spacewalk.