SpaceX will attempt to conduct the first private human spacewalk in history, Reuters reports on August 24.
The risky mission from Elon Musk’s space company will test new equipment including thin spacesuits and an airlock-less cabin aboard a modified Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The crew will include a billionaire businessman, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees. They will perform a 20-minute spacewalk at an altitude of 700 km above Earth.
At this altitude, outside the protective bubble of the Earth’s atmosphere, where the concentration of charged particles is high, electronic devices and space suits will be tested.
The spacewalk will take place on the third day of the mission, but preparations will begin approximately 45 hours in advance.
Long before the spacewalk, the crew will begin the process. “pre-breath”to fill the cabin with pure oxygen and remove all nitrogen from the air. This will prevent decompression sickness, known as “box sickness,” which occurs in divers who ascend too quickly from the depths to the surface of the water.
The entire Crew Dragon cabin will then be depressurized and exposed to the vacuum of space. While only two astronauts will float outside, connected to oxygen hoses, the rest of the crew inside the ship will rely on their life support suits.
So far, attempts at human spacewalks have been conducted solely by government agencies on the International Space Station, located 400 kilometers above Earth.
The five-day SpaceX mission, called Polaris Dawn, will orbit in an oval-shaped orbit at altitudes ranging from 190 to 1,400 kilometers (120 to 870 miles), the highest human orbit since the end of the U.S. Apollo lunar program in 1972.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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