The Polaris Dawn crew broke the 1966 record: what is known about the four amateur astronauts and what they did to distinguish themselves. Photo

SpaceX' s Polaris Dawn mission, which launched into space yesterday (September 10), broke Gemini 11's record in 1966. The crew of four amateur astronauts reached an unprecedented altitude for an orbit around the Earth - more than 1,400 kilometers.

According to the commander of Polaris Dawn and its sponsor billionaire Jared Isaacman, this is the greatest distance humans have traveled since the last time they visited the moon more than 50 years ago, writes Space.com. And that's not all the records that the intrepid Polaris Dawn astronauts have accomplished and plan to accomplish, CNN details .

Record-breaking mission

Polaris Dawn is the first-ever private spacewalk with four amateur astronauts.

The mission participants, aboard SpaceX's Dragon "Resilience" spacecraft, reached the record-breaking distance about 15 hours after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The astronauts climbed into an elliptical orbit with an apogee altitude of 1,400.7 kilometers, experts said. They also circled the planet about eight times in an initial orbit of 306 by 1,930 kilometers.

Scientists note that the crew's maximum altitude more than doubled the maximum altitude reached by NASA's space shuttle during the Hubble Space Telescope deployment in 1990. And it also surpassed the preliminary record of 1,373 kilometers for a crewed spacecraft orbiting Earth, achieved by NASA's Gemini 11 mission in 1966.

"This is the greatest distance humans have traveled since they last walked on the moon more than 50 years ago," said Polaris Dawn commander and sponsor Jared Isaacman.

SpaceX emphasizes that the high flight was not just a stunt to get into the record books, but to gather more data on the effects of the space environment on spacecraft systems and the human body. The astronauts passed through the radiation portions of the Van Allen belt, which is the zones of energetic charged particles that surround Earth and shield it from most of the sun's radiation and cosmic rays.

The data collected will help SpaceX improve its future space transportation structure, because radiation can interfere with spacecraft systems. Experts note that Polaris Dawn is the first time touchscreens and other advanced digital displays have been exposed to this level of radiation during a mission.

Polaris Dawn will also go down in spaceflight history due to the fact that the two female crew members Sarah Gillis and Anna Manon will go deeper into the void of space than any women have gone before. After all, all of the Apollo astronauts were men.

"Two of my crew members, Sarah and Anna, will be women who have traveled farther from Earth in history, which I think is pretty cool," Isaacman added.

Another highlight of Polaris Dawn will be a spacewalk by Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, scheduled for Day 3 of the mission (Sept. 13). The astronauts will try out new spacesuits in the vacuum of space.

During the five-day journey, the astronauts will conduct 40 science experiments before the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule returns back to Earth.

Polaris Dawn crew members

Unlike the other members of Polaris Dawn, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman has already been in orbit in September 2021 as part of SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission. However, Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program that Isaacman is funding. Jared emphasizes that these missions aimed at testing new technologies that can help achieve the great goal of Ilon Musk and all of SpaceX - to see how humans live and work on other planets.

As one of the initiators of the Polaris Dawn mission, Isaacman was involved in selecting the crew members traveling with him.

The pilot for the mission was a longtime friend of Jared's, a former United States Air Force pilot. hours of experience flying jet and experimental aircraft.

Jared Isaacman met Anna Menon during the Inspiration4 mission, where she was a technical advisor to the crew's family members.

Menon, who is an engineer at SpaceX, admitted that she had dreamed of being in space since the fourth grade, when she visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Therefore, the girl did not hesitate for a second when Jared offered to join the young team of astronauts.

The fourth crew member is also a SpaceX engineer - Sarah Gillis. During her career at SpaceX, where she's been working for nearly a decade, Gillis helped develop Crew Dragon's operational process and has been close to human spaceflight. Sarah also trained the Inspiration4 crew for the 2021 mission, and she's seen firsthand how spaceflight can cause harm and discomfort to humans in space. Because she really wanted to feel this experience on herself.

Only verified information we have in Telegram-channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!