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NASA’s ‘Mega Moon Rocket’ aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch • TechCrunch

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The enormous Space Launch System passed its first test with flying colors, NASA’s preliminary analysis concludes, and the rocket and Orion capsule are good to go for their next mission: Artemis II, which will carry a crew to lunar orbit.

After numerous delays and enormous cost overruns, some worried that the SLS (nicknamed the “Mega Moon Rocket”) would never actually take off. But the launch in November went off (mostly) without a hitch, as did the 25-day mission undertaken by an uncrewed Orion capsule.

While its success was apparent, it wasn’t a case of all or nothing. Reams of data needed to be analyzed by NASA’s teams to make sure that Artemis I didn’t succeed in spite of serious problems. Fortunately that does not seem to be the case: Although the teams are still working through the terabytes of raw data, the agency has pronounced the mission good enough to endorse its sequel.

“Building off the assessment conducted shortly after launch, the preliminary post-flight data indicates that all SLS systems performed exceptionally and that the designs are ready to support a crewed flight on Artemis II,” wrote NASA in a news post.

Emphasizing the point, SLS Program manager John Honeycutt is quoted as follows:

The correlation between actual flight performance and predicted performance for Artemis I was excellent. There is engineering and an art to successfully building and launching a rocket, and the analysis on the SLS rocket’s inaugural flight puts NASA and its partners in a good position to power missions for Artemis II and beyond.

Key pressures, temperatures, and other values were all within 2 percent of predictions. No doubt the team is working on narrowing that delta even now.

Artemis II’s crewed mission obviously depended entirely on the success of Artemis I, and this is the clearest indication since launch that the SLS and Orion are quantifiably good enough. It’s a big step to say, “Yes, we’re moving forward with putting astronauts on this thing,” but of course there’s a lot more work to come before it takes place. Artemis I’s timeline didn’t exactly go as planned but having verified that the rocket works as expected may help hurry along the next part of NASA’s big plan to return to the moon.

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NASA and DARPA will test nuclear thermal engines for crewed missions to Mars

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NASA is going back to an old idea as it tries to get humans to Mars. It is teaming up with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space with the aim of using the technology for crewed missions to the red planet. The agencies hope to “demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said. “With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever — a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars.”

Under the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate will take the lead on technical development of the engine, which will be integrated with an experimental spacecraft from DARPA. NASA says that nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) could allow spacecraft to travel faster, which could reduce the volume of supplies needed to carry out a long mission. An NTD engine could also free up space for more science equipment and extra power for instrumentation and communication.

As far back as the 1940s, scientists started speculating about the possibility of using nuclear energy to power spaceflight. The US conducted ground experiments on that front starting in the ’50s. Budget cutbacks and changing priorities (such as a focus on the Space Shuttle program) led to NASA abandoning the project at the end of 1972 before it carried out any test flights.

There are, of course, risks involved with NTP engines, such as the possible dispersal of radioactive material in the environment should a failure occur in the atmosphere or orbit. Nevertheless, NASA says the faster transit times that NTP engines can enable could lower the risk to astronauts — they could reduce travel times to Mars by up to a quarter. Nuclear thermal rockets could be at least three times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion methods.

NASA is also looking into nuclear energy to power related space exploration efforts. In 2018, it carried out tests of a portable nuclear reactor as part of efforts to develop a system capable of powering a habitat on Mars. Last year, NASA and the Department of Energy selected three contractors to design a fission surface power system that it can test on the Moon. DARPA and the Defense Department have worked on other NTP engine projects over the last few years.

Meanwhile, the US has just approved a small modular nuclear design for the first time. As Gizmodo reports, the design allows for a nuclear facility that’s around a third the size of a standard reactor. Each module is capable of producing around 50 megawatts of power. The design, from a company called NuScale, could lower the cost and complexity of building nuclear power plants.

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Target Venus not Mars for first crewed mission to another planet, experts say | Venus

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With a surface hot enough to melt lead, crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds of sulphuric acid, Venus might not sound like the most enticing destination for human exploration.

But a group of experts are advocating that our other nearest neighbour, rather than Mars, should be the initial target for a crewed mission to another planet.

There are notable downsides. Walking on the surface would be an unsurvivable experience, so astronauts would have to gaze down at the planet from the safety of their spacecraft in a flyby mission.

In its favour, however, Venus is significantly closer, making a return mission doable in a year, compared with a potentially three-year roundtrip to Mars. A flyby would be scientifically valuable and could provide crucial experience of a lengthy deep-space mission as a precursor to visiting Mars, according to a report presented at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris last week.

“Venus gets a bad rap because it’s got such a difficult surface environment,” said Dr Noam Izenberg of the Johns Hopkins University applied physics laboratory and one of the proponents of the Venus flyby.

“The current Nasa paradigm is moon-to-Mars. We’re trying to make the case for Venus as an additional target on that pathway,” he said.

Izenberg said there were practical arguments for incorporating a Venus flyby into the crewed Mars landing that Nasa hopes to achieve by the late 2030s. Although the planet is in the “wrong” direction, performing a slingshot around Venus – known as a gravity assist – could reduce the travel time and the fuel required to get to the red planet. That would make a crewed flyby trip to Venus a natural stepping stone towards Nasa’s ultimate goal.

“You’d be learning about how people work in deep space, without committing yourself to a full Mars mission,” he said. “And it’s not just going out into the middle of nowhere – it would have a bit of cachet as you’d be visiting another planet for the first time.”

“We need to understand how we can get out of the cradle and move into the universe,” he added.

There is also renewed scientific interest in Venus. The discovery of thousands of exoplanets raises the question of how many might be habitable, and scientists want to understand how and why Venus, a planet so similar to our own in size, mass and distance from the sun, ended up with infernal surface conditions.

Izenberg said a Venus flyby “doesn’t yet have traction” in the broader space travel community, although there are advocates within Nasa, including its chief economist, Alexander Macdonald, who led the IAC session.

The pair recently co-authored a report entitled Meeting with the Goddess that makes the case for the hypothetical mission, suggesting that astronauts could deploy tele-operated rovers, drones and balloons to observe Venus’s active volcanoes and search for signs of past water and ancient life.

“There is every reason to believe that Venus will be an endless wonderland of beguiling and mysterious vistas and formations,” the report says.

Not everyone, however, is convinced by the concept. “It’s really not a nice place to go. It’s a hellish environment and the thermal challenges for a human mission would be quite considerable,” said Prof Andrew Coates, a space scientist at UCL’s Mullard space science laboratory.

He said Venus was rightly a focus of scientific exploration, but that “a human flyby really wouldn’t add very much”.

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NASA requests proposals for second Artemis crewed lunar lander

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PARIS — NASA has released a request for proposals for a second human lunar lander for the Artemis program to join the Starship lander under development by SpaceX.

NASA released the call for proposals Sept. 16, nearly six months after announcing plans for the Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) project and releasing a draft call for proposals for industry feedback. The agency set a deadline of Nov. 15 for receiving proposals with an award expected in May 2023.

The selected company would develop a lander that would support missions after Artemis 3, the first crewed landing of the Artemis campaign that will be done by SpaceX no earlier than 2025. The winning company would carry out an uncrewed landing followed by a crewed landing no earlier than the Artemis 5 mission in the late 2020s, then be eligible, along with SpaceX, to complete for lunar landing service contracts for later missions.

“Work done under this solicitation, in addition to current lander development and studies taking place, will help build the foundation for long-term deep space exploration,” Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of the Human Landing System (HLS) program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a statement about the release of the call for proposals.

In March, NASA billed Sustaining Lunar Development as fulfilling a commitment to Congress that it will have competition in the overall HLS program. “I promised competition, so here it is,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the March announcement of the project.

The winning company will have to demonstrate its lander can meet the requirements for a notional lunar lander mission called a Polar Sortie Mission. That mission would carry two astronauts to the lunar surface for a stay of up to 6.25 days and support four planned and one contingency moonwalk.

A later Polar Excursion Mission would require the lander to transport four astronauts to the lunar surface and stay there for 33 days. That mission would assume there are other assets at the landing site, like a habitat where astronauts would stay during the mission, and thus require only one roundtrip moonwalk from the lander to the habitat and back. Companies can also show how their landers could support short-stay missions to regions other than the south pole of the moon as well as be used to transport cargo.

The original HLS competition, won by SpaceX in April 2021, also included bids from teams led by Blue Origin and Dynetics. Those companies protested the award to the Government Accountability Office, which rejected the protests three months later. Blue Origin then filed suit in federal court, which ruled against the company, allowing NASA to proceed with SpaceX.

Neither Blue Origin nor Dynetics have formally announced their intent to bid on the Sustaining Lunar Development program, although Blue Origin does have an “Artemis Lander” placeholder page on its website.

It’s also unclear if Blue Origin’s partners on its “National Team” that bid on HLS, including Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, will join Blue Origin again on the new competition. Officials with Lockheed and Northrop were noncommittal shortly after the announcement of the project in March, saying at the time they were studying options.

“We’re looking at SLD. Obviously, it’s an opportunity for us,” Robert Lightfoot, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Space, said in an Aug. 28 interview before the first Artemis 1 launch attempt. He said the company had decided what companies it would work with on the proposal but wasn’t ready to disclose them.

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Starship uncrewed lunar lander test a “skeleton” of crewed lander

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LAUREL, Md. — A SpaceX Starship that will land on the moon an on uncrewed test flight may only be a “skeleton” of the version of that will carry people on the Artemis 3 mission, NASA says.

In a presentation at the annual meeting of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) here Aug. 23, Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of the Human Landing System (HLS) program, said the Starship that performs that uncrewed landing demo mission won’t necessarily be identical to the vehicle that is used to transport astronauts to and from the surface of the moon on Artemis 3 as soon as 2025.

“For the uncrewed demo, the goal is to have a safe landing,” she said. “The uncrewed demo is not necessarily planned to be the same Starship that you see for the crewed demo. It’s going to be a skeleton because it just has to land. It does not have to take back off.”

“Clearly we want it to,” she added, referring to a takeoff, “but the requirements are for it to land.”

That uncrewed landing, scheduled for no earlier than 2024, is a key test ahead of the crewed Artemis 3 mission. Watson-Morgan said that the uncrewed landing will take place in the south polar regions of the moon, but no decisions have been made on a landing site, including whether it will be one of the 13 regions NASA announced Aug. 19 would be considered for the Artemis 3 mission. One factor in choosing a landing site, she said, was to “preserve science in the future” by not disrupting any Artemis 3 landing sites.

There will be an opportunity to do science on the uncrewed demo landing. That includes flying a suite of sensors and imagers “and potentially one payload,” she said, but didn’t specify what kinds of sensors or payloads might fly. The types of payloads NASA were interested in flying include those “that don’t require a tremendous amount of upkeep.”

However, she and others said they want to maximize the performance that Starship offers on lunar landings, with the potential to carry large payloads. While the original HLS competition had a requirement to carry only 100 kilograms of cargo to the surface and back in addition to two astronauts, said Logan Kennedy, HLS surface lead at NASA, the later “sustained” missions will increase that to 182 kilograms to the surface and 160 kilograms back, with a goal of 1,000 kilograms down and back.

“We’re going to leverage all that we can on this mission to try and take up and down as much as we can, using the size of their system,” Watson-Morgan said.

She said SpaceX has been a “fantastic partner” on HLS so far, with close cooperation between the company and the agency. SpaceX has been involved in the Artemis 3 landing site selection process to ensure potential landing regions are compatible with Starship. NASA, in turn, has its personnel, including astronauts, visiting SpaceX facilities for reviews and hardware tests.

That includes one of the unique attributes of Starship, the elevator required to go from the crew cabin to the surface. “It’s a very tall lander. It doesn’t look like the traditional landers that we’ve all seen in the past, so it can be hard to reconcile that mentally,” Watson-Morgan said.

She assured scientists at the meeting that the elevator design was robust, saying it was “multi-fault-tolerant” and designed for operating in lunar conditions. In his presentation, Kennedy showed images of a full-scale mockup of the elevator that SpaceX built for “crew-in-the-loop” tests, including ones where astronauts wore simulated spacesuits to test the ability to get in and out of the elevator.

Some aspects of the overall Starship lunar landing architecture, though, remain unclear. The concept of operations for the lander involves SpaceX launching a Starship into low Earth orbit that will serve as a fuel depot, which is filled by subsequent Starship launches that serve as tankers. The lunar lander Starship will then launch, fill its tanks at the depot, and head to lunar orbit.

Neither NASA nor SpaceX, though, have said exactly how many launches will be required for a single Starship lunar landing mission, an issue of contention during protests of the SpaceX HLS award last year by Blue Origin. “How many? However many is needed. That is how many we’ll launch,” Watson-Morgan said.

NASA’s requirements for HLS missions end once the astronauts are returned to Orion. “We don’t tell them to do anything with it,” Kennedy said of the fate of the Starship lander after returning astronauts from the lunar surface. “That’s going to be up to SpaceX.”

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SpaceX crewed flight to ISS delayed by damaged rocket • The Register

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A SpaceX flight sending the next bunch of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) has been pushed back a few weeks after the Falcon 9 rocket to be used for the journey was damaged during transportation.

The SpaceX Crew-5 mission was due to launch at the start of September, but will not go ahead until September 29 at the earliest, NASA announced. The delay will give the Elon Musk corporation time to repair or replace the dinged hardware, and more time to install a new heat shield, parachutes, and pod panels on the reusable capsule that ferries the astronauts.

“A launch at the end of September will allow SpaceX to complete hardware processing and mission teams will continue to review the launch date based on the space station’s visiting spacecraft schedule,” the US space agency said in a statement. “Launch of Crew-5 now will take place after a scheduled Soyuz undocking and launch period from Sept 16-30.”

The Falcon 9 rocket was damaged when it was transported from SpaceX’s factory in Hawthorne, California, to its test facility in McGregor, Texas. X-ray inspections and as well as load and shock analysis confirmed only part of the rocket’s interstage was affected, and the rest of the vehicle is fine. 

The decision comes just as Sandra Magnus, a member of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and former astronaut, recommended NASA only reuse SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and astronaut-ferrying Crew Dragon capsules up to five times each. The Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket of which the first stage, like the Dragon capsule, is reusable once recovered and refurbished.

“As both NASA and SpaceX have gained experience with working together and SpaceX has accumulated a flight history on both the Falcon 9 booster and Dragon capsule, NASA has been thinking carefully about reuse and their certification process for reuse,” she said during a panel meeting this week, SpaceNews reported. “As a result, NASA has determined they are comfortable with up to a five-time reuse for both the Falcon 9 and the Crew Dragon capsule,” she said.

For the Crew-5 mission, the space travelers will board SpaceX’s Dragon Endurance capsule, which has only been used once before for the Crew-3 mission. The capsule sits atop a Falcon 9 rocket; its first-stage booster is brand new.

Crew-5 is made up of four astronauts, including NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos’ Anna Kikina. The first three of that group were originally meant to fly to the International Space Station in an earlier mission aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, but the spacecraft was grounded last year due to corrosion of its valves. Kikina will be the first cosmonaut to fly to the floating space lab in a SpaceX capsule.

NASA and Roscosmos recently signed an agreement to allocate seats to Russian cosmonauts on US spaceflights, in return for American astronauts to fly on Russia’s Soyuz to and from the ISS. ®

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NASA Selects Astronauts to Fly on First Crewed Starliner Test Flight

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In anticipation of Boeing’s first crewed test flight of Starliner, NASA has chosen two astronauts to fly on board the troubled spacecraft, in a mission that could launch later this year.

On Friday, NASA announced that veteran astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will fly on board the Crew Flight Test (CFT), the launch date of which will be determined by end of July, according to the space agency. Following the completion of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) in May, which launched the spacecraft to the ISS and back, Boeing is ready to test Starliner with a two-person crew strapped inside.

These tests are crucial for Boeing’s $4.3 billion contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which, if all goes well, will be transporting astronauts to the ISS via a CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. But OFT-2 suffered from a few hiccups, including the failure of a thruster used for orbital maneuvering, not to mention the slew of problems and delays that have marred the program. Still, NASA seems intent on following through with Boeing’s Starliner, despite purchasing five additional missions from SpaceX, the agency’s other commercial partner, which has been flying astronauts to the ISS since 2020.

For the first CFT, Wilmore, who spent six months on the ISS from 2014 to 2015, will command the mission, while Williams, who served on two long duration ISS missions from 2006 to 2007 and again in 2012, will pilot Boeing’s reusable capsule. NASA had to reshuffle its inaugural Starliner crew, replacing NASA astronaut Nicole Mann with Williams. Mann was instead assigned to SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission, which is scheduled for launch in September. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who was previously assigned as the Joint Operations Commander for CFT, will now be training as a backup pilot for the first CFT mission.

“Based upon current space station resources and scheduling needs, a short duration mission with two astronaut test pilots is sufficient to meet all NASA and Boeing test objectives for CFT, which include demonstrating Starliner’s ability to safely fly operational crewed missions to and from the space station,” NASA wrote in a statement.

Boeing’s Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. If all goes well, NASA could certify Starliner for regular, long-duration crewed missions to the ISS.

More: Our First Glimpse of Boeing’s Upcoming Starliner Spacesuit

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A Chinese space center found a mysterious jamming device outside its base just weeks before a crewed rocket launch

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The Shenzhou-14 crewed spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket seen at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.VCG/VCG via Getty Images

  • China’s main satellite launch center found a jammer near its base just before a launch, per local media.

  • The device, which has a maximum range of about 32 feet and can be bought online, was found in a car.

  • The jammer could interfere with a satellite’s signal, one scientist from the center told SCMP.

Researchers from a space center in China said they found a jamming device right outside their base just weeks before a scheduled rocket launch, according to local news outlets.

The device was found in a car being driven near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province about two weeks ago, Yangtze Evening News reported on Sunday.

The space center didn’t say if the incident was an act of sabotage but noted that the jammer could interfere with navigation systems and make a rocket go off course, per the outlet.

China is set to send three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Sunday via its Shenzhou-14 rocket. Among the crew is Liu Yang, who became China’s first woman to be sent into space in 2012.

According to Yangtze Evening News, scientists at the Jiuquan space center started detecting “abnormal” interference signals earlier this month and spent several days tracking them down.

The discovered device was a small frequency transmitter with a typical maximum range of 32 feet, per The South China Morning Post. The outlet reported that such devices could be bought on e-commerce websites like “Taobao” — China’s robust version of Amazon.

Despite its size, the device could be used to disrupt a satellite’s signal, which is already weak because it’s beamed from altitudes of more than 12,000 feet above the Earth, a scientist from the center told SCMP.

As of Tuesday morning Beijing time, the Shenzhou-14 launch is still proceeding as planned, with the Jiuquan space center’s facilities and equipment “in good condition,” Xinhua News reported.

If successful, the crewed mission will kick off the final construction phase of the Tiangong space station — China’s answer to the International Space Station (ISS). Chinese astronauts have been barred from the ISS since 2011 over US security concerns.

Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” comprises three modules that will be installed one by one. The first module has been in orbit since April 2021.

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Chinese astronauts land on Earth after China’s longest crewed space mission

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SHANGHAI, April 16 (Reuters) – Three Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, state television reported, completing the country’s longest crewed space mission to date.

The astronauts landed nine hours after they left a key module of China’s first space station.

While in orbit, the Shenzhou-13 mission astronauts took manual control in the Tianhe living quarters module for what state media called a “docking experiment” with the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft.

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Following their launch in October, the astronauts – Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and a female crew member Wang Yaping – spent 183 days in space, completing the fifth of 11 missions needed to finish the space station by the end of the year.

A child stands near a giant screen showing the image of the Tianhe space station on the country’s Space Day at China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, China April 24, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

Shenzhou-13 was the second of four planned crewed missions to complete construction of the space station, which began last April. Shenzhou-12 returned to Earth in September.

China’s next two missions will be Tianzhou-4, a cargo spacecraft, and the three-person Shenzhou-14 mission, Shao Limin, deputy technology manager of Manned Spaceship System was quoted by state media as saying.

Barred by the United States from participating in the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit, China has spent the past decade developing technologies to build its own space station, the only one in the world other than the ISS.

China, which aims to become a space power by 2030, has successfully launched probes to explore Mars and became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon.

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Reporting by Liangping Gao in Beijing and Andrew Galbraith in Shanghai; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Jared Isaacman to fund 3 SpaceX flights, including first crewed launch of Starship

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The first flight, which could come by the end of the year, will aim to send a crew of four farther than any other human spaceflight in 50 years and feature the first private-citizen spacewalk, Isaacman said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post. The second flight also would be aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the vehicle that NASA now relies on to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight was launched on Sept. 15 from Kennedy Space Center. It was the first flight to reach orbit with an all-civilian astronaut crew. (SpaceX)

Last year, Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company, funded what was called the Inspiration4 mission. That flight sent Isaacman and three other private citizens — strangers until they were chosen for the mission — into orbit for three days in a flight that raised more than $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The flight reached an altitude of 367 miles, higher than the Hubble Space Telescope and most space shuttle flights, and was operated entirely by SpaceX, which trained the crew, provided their spacesuits, kept them alive in orbit and then plucked them from the Gulf of Mexico after they returned to Earth. With NASA watching from the sidelines, it was yet another sign of the erosion of government’s long-held monopoly on human spaceflight, as private companies become more capable and daring.

After the Inspiration4 flight, Isaacman hinted there might be more to come, saying, “That was a heck of a ride for us, and we’re just getting started.”

In the interview with The Post, Isaacman said that he had been discussing the Polaris program with SpaceX before the Inspiration4 mission. After the Inspiration4 flight, he said, he was awed by the wonder of space travel and eager to go again. But he also had doubts about whether he should continue the private spaceflights because the Inspiration4 mission, which was chronicled in a Netflix series, had successfully completed so many milestones. And he feared he wouldn’t be able to break new ground.

“I love space, and I would definitely want to take an opportunity to go back,” said Isaacman, who is also an aviation enthusiast and highly skilled jet pilot. “I just also felt like we got a lot of things done with Inspiration4, and I never wanted to potentially take away from that unless it could make a really good impact on the world.”

He didn’t want to proceed until he was convinced that the additional flights would “serve the bigger purpose of opening up space for everyone and making humankind a multiplanetary species and, ideally, have a benefit for the things we’re trying to accomplish back here on Earth.”

Isaacman and SpaceX did not disclose how much he was paying for the flights, though the figure could easily be several hundred million dollars. He also wouldn’t say exactly how much the Inspiration4 mission cost, except that the price was less than $200 million.

In addition to the first commercial spacewalk, Isaacman said the first Polaris mission would endeavor “to go farther than anyone’s gone since we last walked on the moon — in the highest Earth orbit that anyone’s ever flown.” The record was set in 1966 by the Gemini 11 crew, which flew to 853 miles, the highest altitude for any non-lunar crewed mission, according to NASA.

The flight, which would take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, would require a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. But the FAA considers only the safety of people and property on the ground in granting such approval and not the risks their activities in space might pose to the crew.

The crew would also test SpaceX’s Starlink laser-based satellite communications technology in space. While Starlink satellites now beam Internet signals to rural areas on Earth, SpaceX is hoping to use the system for human spaceflight missions to the moon and Mars. The program would also collaborate with several university and research institutions, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Isaacman said the first mission would also conduct a study before and after the spacewalk to test how people cope with decompression sickness and why it varies. The crew would also gather data on how radiation affects the human body and how microgravity changes the structure of astronauts’ brains and eyes.

Isaacman will be the commander of the first Polaris flight, known as Polaris Dawn. He’ll be joined by Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force pilot who served as the mission director for Inspiration4, and two SpaceX lead operation engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, who help prepare astronauts for flights on the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The four got to know one another during the Inspiration4 mission and have “a foundation of trust they can build upon as they undertake the challenges of this mission,” the crew said in a statement.

Menon is married to Anil Menon, SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, who was recently selected by NASA to join its astronaut corps. When the couple told their 4-year-old son that Anil Menon was going to be a NASA astronaut, “the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Mama, when are you going to become an astronaut?’ ” Anna Menon said in an interview.

A few weeks later, Isaacman asked her to join the Polaris crew, and now she will likely reach space before her husband.

In addition to setting an altitude record, the Polaris Dawn crew is also aiming to perform a spacewalk, which would be a first for an all-private-citizen spaceflight. Since the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock, the crew would have to put on pressurized spacesuits and slowly depressurize the cabin before opening the hatch at the top of the capsule. Then they could climb outside to float in space, while being tethered to the spacecraft.

Isaacman said it had not yet been decided whether everyone would get the chance to venture outside and that it was one of many details of the operation that are still being worked out. To perform the spacewalk, SpaceX is developing more advanced spacesuits that would keep the astronauts safe in the vacuum of space.

The spacewalk would add an additional layer of difficultly and risk to an endeavor already fraught with danger. NASA astronauts spend months training for their spacewalks on the International Space Station, practicing underwater in a massive pool at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to simulate the weightless environment of space. Stepping outside the space station is considered among the most dangerous activities an astronaut can undertake, and it’s never before been attempted by nonprofessional astronauts.

Still, the Polaris crew said they were confident that they could harness NASA’s experience and that SpaceX would be able to ensure their safety on what are known as extravehicular activities, or EVAs.

“NASA has done spacewalks for so long, and there’s so much knowledge that they have gained through the process, and we really intend to leverage that,” Gillis said. “We have talked with former NASA astronauts and current NASA astronauts about their experiences on EVAs, and how you actually go about accomplishing this. Having seen it firsthand, I really, really believe in the SpaceX processes and the verification, the testing process and the really scrutinous look that they take in absolutely everything.”

Isaacman said the team will share more details about the mission — and the two that would follow — in the months to come. The crews for the last two flights have not yet been selected, he said. But Isaacman said that the program would “culminate in the first crewed flight of Starship.”

But if Isaacman and his crew were to fly in it first, that would mark a fundamental shift in human spaceflight. Usually, NASA relies on its most seasoned astronauts for the first crewed test flights of new rockets. On the first human flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, for example, veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were the first to test it out.

Isaacman said that Starship will fly many times before the first crewed flight. “I expect in good SpaceX fashion, they’re going to do an awful lot of flights and get a lot of data before the first human beings get on board that vehicle,” he said.

Having a private-citizen crew be the first to fly Starship is not a slight to NASA, Isaacman said, but rather another sign of how space exploration is undergoing a fundamental shift.

“NASA has paved the way for everyone — just to be immensely clear on that,” Isaacman said. “We’re all here today because of their accomplishments and sacrifices from so long ago. But what we’re seeing here is this is not exclusive to NASA. There is a ton of private money that’s trying to deliver on the dream that SpaceX has.”

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