These two dragons are getting ready to spread their wings.
Aug. 27 and Sept. SpaceX gave us an update on the Polaris Dawn and Crew Dragon capsules that will fly on the Crew-9 space missions that will launch on the 24th.
„Twin Dragons prepare to fly ahead of Polaris Dawn and Crew-9 human space missions,” Institute X wrote in the post On Wednesday (Aug. 21), two photos were taken of the capsules side-by-side at a processing facility on Florida’s Space Coast.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned projects in the Polaris project funded by billionaire technology entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. The flight will send Isaacman, Scott „Kid” Poteed, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon on a five-day mission into Earth orbit.
Polaris Dawn will be the first private spacewalk and will go 435 miles (700 kilometers) from Earth — farther than any crewed mission since the Apollo era. Gillis and Menon will go deep into a void where no woman has ever been. (The Apollo astronauts were all men.)
The upcoming mission is the second for Isaacman, who commanded and sponsored the Inspiration4 mission to Earth orbit in September 2021. Like Inspiration4, Polaris Dawn will be a free flyer that will orbit our planet alone instead of being tethered to the International Space Station (ISS).
Related: Polaris Dawn Mission: Meet the crew of the 1st commercial space mission
Crew-9 will be the ninth operational, long-duration space mission that SpaceX has flown to the ISS for NASA. It is currently scheduled to send Alexander Korbunov of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Gina Cartman and Stephanie Wilson to the orbiting observatory.
However, that expression may change. NASA is considering using the Crew Dragon to carry astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth. Both flew on the first crew test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which encountered thruster problems en route to the ISS.
If NASA decides it’s too dangerous to send Williams and Wilmore home aboard the Starliner, they will launch Crew-9 with two astronauts. That mission’s Crew Dragon will take its original two crew members, Williams and Wilmore, home early next year.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on August 22 to correct the publication date. The mission was earlier scheduled to begin on August 26, but is now scheduled for August 27.