In a nutshell: Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who commissioned and led SpaceX’s first all-private astronaut mission in 2021, has put in an order for three additional flights with Elon Musk’s firm. The first flight, which could take place before the end of 2022, will send four people further into space than any other mission in the last 50 years.
Isaacman will command the flight, known as Polaris Dawn, and will be joined by Scott Poteet, who served as the mission director for Inspiration4, along with SpaceX lead operation engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.
They’ll conduct the first-ever private citizen spacewalk during the mission, test Starlink satellites and study how people deal with decompression sickness.
The second flight will utilize SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the same model that was used back in September. The third flight, however, will rely on Space’s next-gen Starship spacecraft, which the company plans to also use for lunar landings and for trips to Mars.
Isaacman told The Washington Post after his first flight that he was awed by the wonder of space travel and was eager to have another go at it. “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 said.
Isaacman didn’t say how much he would be paying for the three additional missions with SpaceX, nor did he reveal how much the Inspiration4 mission cost outside of the fact that it was less than $200 million.
Isaacman expects to share more details about the three missions in the coming months.
Image credit: SpaceX
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