BOCA CHICA, Texas — Billionaire Jared Isaacman, who led the first private, all-civilian SpaceX flight to orbit in 2021, has purchased as many as three additional flights from Elon Musk’s company, including the company’s first crewed Starship launch.
The first in the trio of missions, dubbed collectively the Polaris program, is slated to launch in the fourth quarter, with Isaacson reprising his role as mission commander of a four-person crew aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, CNBC reported.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
According to the program’s official website, Polaris will culminate with the first crewed spaceflight incorporating SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket.
“The Polaris Program is an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through the use of innovative technology here on Earth,” Isaacman said in a prepared statement.
In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, Isaacman said that the first flight, dubbed Polaris Dawn, will feature the first private-citizen spacewalk and aims to send its crew farther than any other human spaceflight in five decades.
Collectively, the Polaris Program seeks to “systematically chart new territory in bold, groundbreaking missions,” designed to “dramatically accelerate the progress of commercial spaceflight in what has become a new era of exploration, where private companies — and people — are claiming the rarefied territory that was once the exclusive domain of governments,” the Post reported.
The Polaris Dawn mission will spend as many as five days in orbit, during which the crew will conduct scientific research on human health and test Starlink satellite communications in space, CNBC reported.
>> Related: Splashdown: Watch first all-civilian crew complete SpaceX mission, return to Earth
In addition to Isaacman, the Polaris Dawn crew will include pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, the company’s lead space operations engineers. Gillis oversees SpaceX’s astronaut-training program, while Menon manages the development of the program’s crew operations, the network reported.
Read The Washington Post’s complete report.
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